


Long Road Home

by wingeddserpent



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Families of Choice, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Touching, Psychological Torture, Sleep Deprivation, Torture, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingeddserpent/pseuds/wingeddserpent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kevin becomes a real Winchester. Or: he screws everything up, endangers everyone, and then somehow saves the day. (Oh, and he finds out that outsmarting Abaddon is way different from outsmarting Crowley.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had the absolute joy of collaborating with [playthefool](http://playthefool.livejournal.com/) on this piece. She has seriously been wonderful every step of the way. [Here](http://playthefool.livejournal.com/335201.html) is the wonderful artwork she created. I can't even begin to say how amazing working with her has been. 
> 
> Spoilers for 9.06. 9.09 is completely disregarded.
> 
> Warnings for the whole work: drug abuse/dependence and alcohol abuse by a minor (depending on where you live. Where the character is drinking, he is considered a minor), physical and psychological torture, canon-typical violence, withdrawal, forced blood drinking, nightmares, and unwanted touching.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: drug abuse/dependence and alcohol abuse by a minor (depending on where you live. Where the character is drinking, he is considered a minor).

Sam sneaks salads like some people sneak booze. He eats them standing in the kitchen, when he thinks his brother won’t find him and give him shit for it. Given Dean’s thing for heart attacks on grease-soaked buns, Kevin can’t blame him. “You guys making a supply run soon?” Kevin asks, hopping up onto the counter. Honestly, he had been looking for Dean but his situation is getting dire, so Sam will have to do. 

“Probably,” he says, brows furrowed as he peers down at Kevin, “What do you need?”

As Kevin holds up the empty bottle, he mimics that flat look his mom gave people when she expected them to do things they hated to do. But, probably because Kevin is nowhere near as intimidating as his mother was, Sam’s eyebrows shoot straight to his shaggy hairline and his mouth purses, cheekbones thrown into sharp relief. All Kevin can think for a second is that Sam’s lost some weight since the Trials. “My head is killing me,” Kevin explains after a moment of Sam’s intent stare, voice soft as he lowers his head to examine Sam’s exposed clavicle. 

Sam’s adam’s apple bobs as he swallows and he rests his hand on Kevin’s shoulder, so that Kevin feels like a nine-year old asking for a gun. _You’ll shoot your eye out._ “This is a band-aid,” his tone is coaxing, that reasonable little brother voice he uses to get Dean to do things he doesn’t want to do, “Kevin, how often have you been taking this?”

“I’m not stupid!” he snaps, temper fraying as pain flares hot behind his eyes. 

Kevin shoves away Sam’s hand then slides off the counter. He glares up, finally meeting Sam’s gaze, watching to retch either with pain or the hazel concern he finds. Sam barely acknowledges his existence for weeks at a time, except to ask about the tablet, and then suddenly starts caring once Kevin needs something? Screw that. Kevin should have gone to Dean, because for all the guy is an ass with serious issues, he at least never balks at giving Kevin drugs. He hadn’t thought Sam would make a big deal about it, because Sam hasn’t really talked to him since his “it gets better” pep talk. 

Of course, considering that Kevin nearly killed him by telling him about the Trials, it’s not really a surprise. Kevin wouldn’t want to talk to himself either. 

Sam looms over Kevin, closer than anybody has been to him in weeks, so that Kevin has to crane his neck back far as it will go. It’s awkward, but Kevin can smell the cheap soap Sam uses and wrinkles his nose. “Kevin, trust me. This isn’t going to help. I’m not… I’m not trying to hurt you, I’m trying to help you,” Sam says like he believes it, expression soft, complete with those stupid doe-eyes everybody falls for. 

(Except Kevin doesn’t. Kevin isn’t stupid enough. Not again—he remembers that year on the run, spent in broken-down churches and dozing fitfully on park benches. That year on his feet, bleeding out in messages Sam never heard. Kevin remembers that day when he realized, finally, that Sam was never going to pick up and Kevin could never go home. Kevin doesn’t fall for the doe-eyes because Sam—Sam left him for a dog and maybe Kevin forgives him, sort of, but he’ll never forget. Kind of hard to forget when he still dreams about that winter, freezing down to his bones, imagining the skin beneath his fingernails blackened by frost. Kevin can’t forget and so that sweetness can’t reel him in.)

Despite not being drawn in, Kevin can be reasonable if it gets him what he needs. “I can’t translate if I can’t think. I can’t think if my head is trying to murder me,” he explains, even as he winces with a particularly painful throb behind his left eye. Splotches of green and yellow shift across his vision, till he’s dizzy with them, stomach rolling. “You know what it’s like, don’t you? You used to get headaches when you were having visions, right?”

Sam nearly blinks himself stupid before his expression crumples as he groans. “You read the books, didn’t you?”

The bright spots dance across his vision as his headache flares again, stabbing pain into his skull like nearly-sharp razorblades. Kevin can barely make out Sam’s face in the mess of color and pain that is his head, but he winces a grin anyway. He started the books as soon as he knew they existed; Kevin wants any advantage he can get. 

“…Great. I still haven’t finished them, but… You know they sort of… exaggerate, right?” Sam asks, almost nervous, almost like he cares what Kevin thinks of him. 

“No. I have no concept of the difference between something ‘based off a true story’ and something real, Sam,” Kevin says, bland, and he tries not to laugh when Sam smiles, tries not to let that count as some sort of victory. 

When it boils down to it, Sam probably won’t get Kevin what he needs. So he’ll have to go find Dean and Dean’ll get it for him, because he gets Kevin anything that will help with his translating. Sure, Kevin might be family, but he’s not family like Sam or Cas are. Kevin isn’t a _real_ Winchester, no matter what Dean wants to claim. He let Cas leave without much of a fight from what Kevin understands, and he doesn’t think for one second Dean would do anything for Kevin he wouldn’t do for Cas. So, Dean will get him the drugs regardless of Kevin’s health or whatever, because the translations are Dean’s priority, not Kevin. Which works out in Kevin’s favor, if he’s being totally honest with himself. 

“Have you been sleeping?” asks Sam, “Eating regularly? Drinking water?”

Shit, Sam can’t know. Sam can’t know that his mom used to get on his case all the time about hydration because, okay, Kevin really just did not drink water unless he was forced. He went through almond milk like crazy, though, until his mom refused to buy more of it until he learned how to properly hydrate. But Kevin swallows against the double-image: Sam towering over him, jaw tight; and his mother, short but somehow larger than life, holding up a stainless steel water bottle, eyes flashing. 

“Check on everything except the sleeping,” rasps Kevin, words caught behind the sudden lump in his throat. 

It’s even mostly true. He has been eating regularly, probably not as much as he should be but enough. And he has been drinking water, though he still consumes more coffee than any one person probably ever needs to. The sleeping thing, though, is by far what he’s worst at. “Nightmares?” Sam’s question a soft rumble, soothing and understanding, and Kevin swallows, because Sam does get it, doesn’t he?

Kevin jerks his head in a nod. He opens his mouth to tell Sam what he’s been dreaming about, to ask if Sam has nightmares still, if that gets better, too. But then Kevin snaps it shut. Because, so what? So what if Kevin is having dreams about Crowley, and his mother, and Channing, and Sam and Dean? Anybody who comes into contact with the Winchesters probably has nightmares, so Kevin’s are nothing special and nobody wants to hear him whine about them. Least of all Sam Winchester. 

Sam lays a hot hand on his shoulder, warmth seeping through Kevin’s hoodie. This time, Kevin leans into the touch, hoping Sam remains oblivious, because Sam is warm and it feels _safe_ and good to be this close to somebody without having to worry and his head throbs, his vision blurs out in colors for a second, before he can even see Sam assessing him with an unreadable expression in his slanty fox-eyes. Kevin wants to laugh with it, hysterical, because evidently Kevin is so desperate he’ll take the crumbs of Sam’s deference despite everything. Despite Sam abandoning him, despite almost killing Sam because Kevin couldn’t be bothered to read the fine print. 

“Kev, I know that it’s hard,” Sam says, slowly, his thumb pressing just this side of pain into a knot in Kevin’s shoulder, “But you’ve got to sleep. The angel tablet is taking a lot out of you and I… don’t want to see you spiral like you did with the demon tablet, okay?”

Which is about when Kevin tunes out. More than almost anything, he hates the patented Winchester bullshit speeches. Instead, he tries not to enjoy the little circles Sam rubs into his tense muscles. “Okay,” he says, when Sam pauses for breath, but he has a feeling that Sam knows that Kevin didn’t listen to a word, considering he pulls away. Kevin sighs.

 Maybe, a little bit, he was enjoying the attention. Not really surprising, though, considering he hasn’t talked to anyone besides himself in three days. And nobody has touched him since Dean hugged him over a week ago. 

“You really need rest, Kevin. If you would just sleep, I think you’d have an easier time translating. Like with the Leviathan tablet,” he states in his stern teacher voice. 

“Actually,” Kevin says, hopping back onto the counter. This is familiar territory, something he’s thought about between frustrating attempts at translating and bouts of fitful sleep. “I think that maybe the demon and angel tablets weren’t intended for me to read. When you guys found the Leviathan tablet, that’s when I became a prophet. I became a prophet specifically to translate the unearthed Leviathan tablet, right? And I was able to translate it no problem. Even when I was working with the whole demon tablet, it was never that easy. Same thing with the angel tablet. So I think… Maybe I was keyed to the Leviathan tablet or something, and so everything else is going to be less natural for me to translate, you know?”

Sam blinks at him for a moment. Apparently he has no clue what Kevin is talking about, and the dark rings under his eyes, the pinched look of them in the corners, indicate he’s probably too tired and too busy to care. Kevin swallows, taps his fingers against the countertop, makes himself wince with the noise as it reverberates through his skull _taptaptaptap_. “I… guess that makes sense…? I can’t say I’m an expert in prophets, but the last one we knew, he had visions of our lives. He could see our future. I don’t know if he could have read the Word or not.”

“Visions, huh?” Kevin tilts his head back to examine the ceiling swinging his legs, wonders if that would have been better or worse than being the sole keeper of the Word. 

“Yeah,” answers Sam, expelling a breath, “He was interesting. But, that’s not the point here. Regardless of whether or not you’re keyed to the angel tablet, you need to take better care of yourself. Okay?”

With a sigh, Kevin hops down. “Yeah, okay. Seriously though, my head is killing me. I’ll try sleeping more, if I can, but will you please replace this?” Sam closes his fingers around the bottle as he grimaces, looking at Kevin like he’s disappointed and, after everything, it makes Kevin’s stomach churn hotly. “Thanks,” he says instead of curling his fingers to fists. 

Kevin leaves Sam to his salad. He finds his way back to his translating room, all covered in sticky-notes and loose paper. Figures that Sam would enjoy the company of the salad to Kevin. Which is fine, really. Kevin has the angel tablet. 

* * *

A day later, Sam leaves a bottle of Excedrin for Kevin in the kitchen, with a neon yellow sticky-note attached. _Sleep_ _~ S_. Even though everybody knows that’s not what Kevin wanted. Kevin throws the bottle out, because, fuck Sam, and regrets it less than an hour later, curled with his forehead pressed into the cool tile of the bathroom floor. Pride keeps him from retrieving it from the trash. 

Fuck Sam. Kevin doesn’t have a problem. Kevin is responsible. Hopefully, Dean realizes that his brother is detrimental to the translating process and gives Kevin what he wants. 

* * *

The angel tablet is awful company, which is the understatement of the year. Kevin scratches at his eyes. Probably the best thing about the bunker is that he has _space_. The houseboat was cramped: there was never enough room for the tablet, his notes, and for Kevin. Which meant that the only place that had been Kevin’s and not the property of “things pertaining to the demon tablet” was his bed. 

Now, at least, Sam and Dean let Kevin take over one of the empty communal rooms in addition to his bedroom. He could separate business and pleasure, now, if he ever did anything for fun. Kevin’s cleared all the furniture from the room, with the exceptions of a chair, a couch, and two oak tables he has pushed together. The walls are covered in papers and sticky-notes, strings connecting ideas in three separate colors: red for words, green for content matter, and yellow for anything that might help Kevin re-open Heaven. 

His temples throb, but he’s out of painkillers, so he takes a slug of his now-cold coffee. 

If he was smart, he’d have Sam and Dean fetch him a coffeepot and a supply of coffee for his translating room. He’ll ask next time he runs into them. The bunker is huge and empty—even when the brothers are here, it can be days between sightings. Generally,  if they’re not out or fighting, Dean or Sam comes by every few days to work on his martial skills. Dean tends to focus on Kevin’s marksmanship, whereas Sam teaches Kevin knife-fighting and hand-to-hand. Aside from that, though, it isn’t unusual to be by himself for days at a time. Weeks, if they’re out. 

The bunker is Kevin’s desert.

He bends over the tablet, earphones shutting out the silence of the bunker, and ignores the pounding in his skull and the bright flashing colors that obscure his vision, the shaking of his hands. His Beethoven CD keeps on playing and Kevin keeps on working. 

* * *

A day later, Dean brings him drugs. He bursts into the room in a glory of plaid and a sing-songed, “Got you the goods,” grinning like he’s gotten Kevin the greatest gift. Maybe he has. 

Kevin matches his grin, because, well, it’s the first time Dean’s seemed even remotely happy since Sam started the Trials and the angels fell. Something happened, something that made it okay for Cas to be off on his own; something that has Dean hovering over Sam, even though Sam seems to be mostly recovering. Kevin doesn’t know that he even wants to know what that something is, so he just takes the offered pill bottle. 

“Don’t leave those anywhere Sam’ll find them,” Dean warns, mirth gone quick as it came and exhaustion tugs at Kevin—every time he starts to think this might be okay, there is always something to pull him back. Something to remind him that of who has died to get him here, who the Winchesters are and what happens to the people around him, that Kevin has a _destiny_. Kevin nods at Dean. “Yeah, okay,” he says, voice raw, and he looks down at his white-knuckled grip on the bottle. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

But Dean brushes off the thanks to examine Kevin’s notes. He traces a finger over one of the yellow threads and asks without looking at Kevin, “Find anything?”

Kevin uncaps his water. The pill is sweet on his tongue as he downs it with a mouthful of water. “Not really. Sorry. It’s.. The language is more figurative than it was on the other tablets.”

“English, Kevin.” 

He sighs, gazing over the spread of his notes. “The angel tablet is more difficult to translate because it’s using harder words and more complex syntax. More metaphors and things of that nature than the other tablets I’ve seen. It’s more like Shakespeare than Hemingway, I guess. I have no idea why it’s written differently, but it is. And I’m—I’m struggling, but you’ll be the first to know when I find something, okay?”

“Thanks,” Dean says, mouth pinched, like he’s holding something back, “Keep on it.”

Kevin turns to the tablet while Dean looks over more of Kevin’s translations. He loses himself in the stone, vision swimming as he stares at it. The warmth of Dean’s hand on his head startles him from his reverie. Kevin blinks up at Dean, some of the tension behind his eyes loosening as Dean ruffles his hair, and Kevin smiles at him, leaning into the warmth before he can quite stop himself. Dean keeps his hand there for a second, expression unreadable, before he pulls away. “You get some sleep. Looks like you need it,” he says even as he turns away. 

And then he’s gone, leaving nothing but the memory of his heat and the drugs. 

Kevin swallows, thick, as the door closes. He blinks down at the tablet , eyes itchy, before he crosses to the couch and pulls a blanket over himself. Somehow, he sleeps. 

* * *

Sam trusts Kevin to come at him with a weapon. The knife is silver, hilted in leather, from Sam’s collection, and belongs to Kevin now. And Kevin comes at him blade first, fingers arranged as carefully as they had been on his cello’s strings forever ago. 

The attack doesn’t connect. 

Own knife outstretched, Sam sidesteps Kevin’s silver to lash out in an arc, wide with the length of his arm. Kevin leaps backwards, too far, and he stumbles over his own feet with the momentum. Luckily, this time his knife remains in hand. 

A smile flits hard and proud on Sam’s face, even as he presses his advantage. His blade gleams as he follows Kevin’s fumble. Kevin brings up his knife between them, catching the blow. The force reverberates through his arm harsh as the loud clash of silver on silver. Sam recovers quicker, disengaging from contact and pulling back to watch Kevin, eyes narrowed and hair hanging heavy with sweat. If Sam didn’t sweat so easily, Kevin might feel gratified. Instead, he circles and circles, scoping out his options. This is a test, sure, but Sam had said, “Come at me like you want to kill me. Always fight to kill, Kevin. I can take it. But this has to be real as possible.”

So, as much as he _hates_ that this is his life, survival is pretty high on Kevin’s list of priorities. Sam’s always going to have the advantage of reach, speed, and experience on him. But Kevin thrives off of people underestimating him. If he can just lull Sam into complacency, maybe he can get somewhere. 

Kevin makes the obvious pass, going straight at Sam, and Sam blocks it easy. They keep on like that, Kevin testing out Sam’s defenses and Sam easily matching him, to pull back. This is about gaging Kevin’s skills, so while Sam will attack, mostly he stays on the defensive. Kevin feels himself slowing, arm aching, and maybe he forgot a key component of this. Stamina. Sam has reach, speed, experience, _and_ stamina on him. Best to get this show on the road. 

This time, when he attacks, he’s ready for the block—staggers back with the force of it, stumbling again. Sam takes the bait. He always tests Kevin’s weaknesses. (Someday, Sam maintains, Kevin will thank him for that.) This time, Kevin is prepared, and he dodges the attack as he lashes out with the knife. Sam’s inertia pulls him further, his size working against him, and Kevin’s blade rips through Sam’s sleeve. Sam growls and attacks, harsh and fast, but he’s smiling—dark and intense. Barely keeping up, Kevin blocks and blocks again, dodges when he can, until his back collides with the wall. “Nice trick,” Sam tells him, raising his knife. For a second, Kevin swears Sam’s eyes flash blue. 

But no, they’re hazel. 

Kevin pants as he sags against the wall, even as he brings the knife up between himself and Sam. With a grin, Sam sheathes his blade and says, “You’re doing better, Kevin. Seriously.”

“Not hard to say when there was so much room for growth to begin with,” Kevin points out, but his lips tilt up into a grin as his pulse thunders in his ears. 

Kevin sets his knife on a nearby table, then takes the water bottle Sam offers him, draining it so quickly that Sam laughs while Kevin gulps air after like a fish out of the ocean. “Come on,” Sam says as he leads Kevin out of the training room, “I think we’re done for the day. How about I make lunch?” 

“Only if you’re planning on making a salad. Seriously, Sam, you cook worse than anyone I’ve ever met, which is saying something. I dated Channing,” her name slips out so easily, so suddenly, he stops in the hallway, staring at where the sweat-slicked strands of Sam’s hair cling to his neck, “Maybe…” he clears his throat against the sudden rawness, heartbeat thudding too-fast in his chest, not from exertion this time, and Sam twists his neck to look at him with dark eyes, “Maybe I should make us lunch,” he finishes, voice thick. 

Something passes over Sam’s face, but he turns and leads Kevin onwards again. Of anyone, Sam would be the one to understand everything Kevin has gone through the last few years. But he wants to tuck away the memory of Channing’s attempt at making vegan cupcakes into his chest where no one can touch it. Those cupcakes had been _so awful_ he hadn’t been able to stomach more than a bite and so they devoured  about six chocolate-covered bananas a piece. Then, they’d lived to regret it. “You know how to cook?” asks Sam, and Kevin can only flash Sam a grateful grin. 

“Yeah. I had to. Mom traveled a lot for her job, you know? So I picked it up,” he explains. “I’m pretty good at it, but I mostly only make vegan stuff, so… But I bet I could make other stuff if I tried…” 

Teaching himself to cook hadn’t been hard. It had been teaching himself to cook _well_ that had been difficult, because Kevin liked to be good at the things he did. No. More than that. He liked to excel at everything he did, and cooking hadn’t been an exception. He grins at Sam—time to show off his actual knife skills, which have absolutely nothing to do with ganking demons and everything to do with fruits and vegetables. “I didn’t know that about your mom,” Sam says, as delicately as he can manage. 

“Yeah? I guess not.” Kevin shrugs. “Well, I mean, it wasn’t like she was _never_ around. Just, she had to travel a lot and everything. But she trusted me by myself, you know? Especially once I started dating Channing, because I had someone to make sure I wasn’t playing too much Skyrim or something.”

Sam barks a laugh as they enter the kitchen, then leans against the counter to watch as Kevin examines the contents of the fridge. Looks like Sam was the one to go shopping this week, because there’s at least as many fruits and vegetables in the bunker as meat and starches. He frowns as he opens the cabinets to find what else they have. Finally, he gathers some tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, an onion, bell peppers, hamburger, some pasta, garlic, a knife, and a cutting board. Sam says, slow and careful, like defusing a bomb, “So, tell me about what your life before was like.”

“Why? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not a secret or anything,” says Kevin, frowning, because it isn’t, but no one’s wanted to know about him since Garth, who seems to be one of the people caught in the crossfires between Kevin and Crowley’s battles. Kevin’s stomach drops and his hand stills partway through slicing a tomato before he regains himself, shrugging with one shoulder. “But why do you want to know?”

Behind him, Sam shifts and Kevin can feel the burn of Sam’s gaze on his back and Kevin tenses against the scrutiny. Awesome. Just when they were starting to get somewhere, Kevin ruins it like he ruins everything by being a dick. He should foster any attention they give him, not get on their case about it. The bunker is silent enough when they’re not pissed at him. 

Kevin hunches over the counter. “Because you’re family and I feel like I hardly know you. Considering that you’ve read the books, that puts me at a disadvantage, don’t you think?”

Kevin sets down the knife, then pivots to turn on the burner. He rarely thinks about who he was before he was struck by holy lightning. Maybe it’s something about today and the adrenaline still coursing through him, or maybe it’s something about Sam, because he at least pretends he cares, or maybe Kevin is a creepy hermit prophet who finally has someone to talk to. Either way, Kevin just shrugs, turning back to cut the onion. “I played the cello. Mostly as a way to relax, but also to show I was a ‘well-rounded student.’ I needed something outside of academics and video games to ground me, you know?  I get really obsessive if I don’t have something to pull me back. And, uh, Channing really liked it when I played.”

“So you’re musical,” Sam says, hint of a smile in his voice. 

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Kevin laughs, shaking his head. “More like persistent. I just don’t like being bad at anything, you know?”

Tone wistful, Sam answers, “Yeah. I get that.”

Kevin allows himself to relax again, some of the tension that is so much a part of being Kevin Tran drains away. He twists his neck to examine at Sam. But Sam isn’t looking at him anymore, is instead staring at a spot above Kevin’s head, hazel eyes darkened brown-black as he remembers something, so Kevin interrupts. (He wishes, sometimes, that there was someone left who would pull him back when the memories came calling. So, at the very least, Kevin can do this for Sam now.) 

“I never met my dad. I don’t even know anything about him—who he was, where he went, whether mom loved him. It was just mom and me. Like I said before, she traveled a lot, though, so at first I had a lot of sitters. Then, it was just me. But Channing came over a lot, so we would study, hang out, you know. Before I wanted to be President, I wanted to test video games. And, before that, I wanted to grow up to be Stephen Hawking.”

Sam huffs out a laugh and Kevin can’t help but match it. Sometimes, maybe, Kevin thinks this can be okay. 

 

(It doesn’t hurt that Sam loves his spaghetti. Once it’s finished, he says, “I don’t remember the last time I had something with at least some vegetables in it that I didn’t have to make myself. Can I convince you to do this again?” And Kevin replies, “Sure.”)

* * *

When he comes to, the tablet’s inscriptions leave imprints on his drool-slick cheek, which would be totally hilarious if he didn’t have to puke _right now_. Kevin barely makes it to the toilet in time to throw up everything he’s eaten ever. Not that he remembers the last time he ate, because time sort of runs together when he translates. He wonders, as he sucks in air between retching, if he’s going to have another stroke. 

Kevin drags the back of his hand over his mouth as he heaves himself to his feet, vision swimming and blood roaring in his ears. His knuckles stand out white as clings to the sink one-handed while he brushes his teeth. When he glimpses his face in the mirror, paled with exertion, he barely recognizes himself. Hair shorn short, the dark purple bags under his eyes, the trickle of dried blood beneath his nose, mouth dry and chapped. And he’s lost weight, face thinner than it ever was before. Kevin huffs out a ragged breath, pressing his palms hard into his temples. Eyes scrunched tightly shut, he breathes and breathes.

His whole life is translating. 

Days spent poring over the Word of God, neck tight and aching, head pounding as he tries to make sense of the symbols, mouth dry. Strokes and demons and the compulsion to translate evidently are his rewards for being a prophet. Kevin snarls, digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. For all of a second, he considers throwing something at the mirror just to watch it shatter because _this was never supposed to be Kevin’s life_. These fucking tablets have taken everything he has ever loved and are in the process of taking him with. 

He breathes in deep lungfuls of cool air and slowly draws his hands away from his face. 

Freaking out will get him exactly nowhere. His stomach rolls again and his head spins, so he figures that he should do something, anything. Maybe something light will help his stomach. At the very least, making his way to the kitchen will give him something to do. Sweat drips down his neck by time he finally lurches into the kitchen and begins his search for something to make him feel like a real boy again.

What he finds instead is half a sheet of paper with Dean’s scrawl on it: _Went on hunt. Be back soon. Don’t leave the bunker._

Kevin stares at it for too long before turning away. His hands shake when he pours himself a glass of water. It shouldn’t surprise him that the Winchesters come and go as if they’re ghosts themselves. He sips at his water, but even that makes his stomach gurgle. 

Probably, he should go sleep. But every time that he shuts his eyes, Crowley leers back at him or his mother appears to him alone and scared. Screw his promise to Sam, Kevin isn’t setting himself up for that again.

The great thing about translating is that it takes everything. It leaves nothing to worry with, to be angry with, to be afraid with. So he refills his glass and leaves to work.

Kevin stares down at the tablet without sitting. The symbols shift, moving beneath his scrutiny, and he furrows his brows, squints as he sets down his glass of water. If anything, they move _faster_. God better be grateful for all the time Kevin’s spent trying to figure out Metatron’s scribbling.

Sticky-note pad and pen in hand, he deciphers or makes a valiant attempt. He jots down the next concept, which appears to be something about a specific angel. 

His temples throb with it, throat working against his stomach’s attempt at rebellion as he writes out anything that comes to mind, anything that might help him later. Even gibberish is better than being _stuck_. Pain sears through his skull, starting from his neck and working up behind his eyes, and he sucks in a breath, but he doesn’t want to move. Not even for pain meds. None of the words he translates seem to connect, but if he just keeps at it, it’ll become clear. He knows it. It has to.

And so he keeps translating, until his eyes droop and, well, the angel tablet isn’t that bad of a pillow, really.

* * *

Kevin startles when a hand closes around his shoulder. Judging by the gargantuan proportion, he’d take a gander and guess that it belong to Sam. He glances up to see Sam looking down at him with his jaw-clenched. Sighing—god, he hadn’t even known they were back, what could he possibly have done _already?_ —he removes his headphones. “How’d the hunt go?” he asks, when Sam doesn’t immediately speak up. 

“I found this in the trash.”

He bangs a bottle down on the table and Kevin grimaces. The Excedrin bottle _looks_ guilty sitting beside his cup of coffee. Kevin resists the urge to turn his face from Sam, instead stands. “What were you going through my trash for?” it comes out sharp, jagged, like Kevin’s spewing out shards of broken glass. 

“I was taking the trash out of you bathroom,” Sam snaps, nostrils flaring, “Don’t change the subject.”

“It’s none of your business.”  

Sam blows out a breath, slowly, and Kevin has the distinct impression that he’s counting backwards from ten. Wisps of hair brush his collarbone as he shakes his head. His eyes are purple-dark underneath, blinking too-slow, and guilt claws in the pit of Kevin’s stomach. Sam looks _fragile,_ like Kevin could knock him over if he tried hard enough. “I’m worried about you, Kevin,” he finally says, rubbing his face, “I don’t want… Translating the way you do, it’s dangerous, even without… Dean got them for you, didn’t he?”

“Can you trust me? I know I get… crazy sometimes, but I need… I need my head not to hurt. Just long enough I can figure out how to open Heaven.” 

He glares down at the stupid thing, at his notes which he can’t seem to make heads or tails of. 

Sam’s mouth purses. “I… know you’re trying to help, Kevin. And we really appreciate it. But it’s not a sprint. You’re gonna hurt yourself—again—if you keep going like this.”

“I’ve got to do this,” he says, sitting down again, “If I get too out of control do something about it. Until then, let me do my job and I’ll let you do yours.”

And he puts on his headphones, which may not be the most mature thing in the universe, but Kevin is going to be twenty in a few months. He’s _allowed_ to be petty and unreasonable. If the Winchesters don’t like it, then they can just kick him out of the bunker, for all Kevin cares. As much as he wants to, he doesn’t glance up to see Sam leave.

He lets the tablet suck him in again and pretends like he can ignore the acid-burn of guilt in his stomach. 

* * *

Bangs plastered to his face, Kevin offers his face to the near-scalding spray of the shower. The water pressure in the bunker is _amazing_. Tension rolls off his shoulders, like a molting snake sheds its skin.  Probably within a few hours his muscles will tighten painfully again, but standing here, letting the water heat his skin red—he can nearly pretend like the pain is temporary. Kevin drags the soap over his chest, dips down to the flat plane of his stomach. 

Over the last year, he’s put on more muscle, finally lost that soft curve of baby fat from when he was sixteen. The cello-calluses have smoothed to make room for the calluses on his palms, so that he barely recognizes his own hands. Though, the writer’s callus on his middle finger remains. No matter how much things change, some things stay the same. 

Kevin slicks up his arms—and that’s when the migraine hits.

His feet slide out from under him. It’s like being struck by lightning again. Against the sharp flash of agony lancing through his skull, the slam of his back against the tub barely registers. The soap flies somewhere unknown and the too-hot water beats down and down. 

He stares unseeing at the ceiling as something invisible takes a dull, rusty scalpel to his brain, and he shudders as if he’s cold, despite the temperature of the water pelting him. _It’s all wrong_ , he realizes, blinding and painful as the headache itself. _All of it is wrong_. Desperate, he claws at the side of the tub until he gets a grip just steady enough to pull himself upright. The water runs pink but Kevin doesn’t care. _Everything is wrong_. He can feel it, somehow, down to the marrow of his bones.  

Kevin crawls out of the tub, scraping his knees against the metal edge. The water keeps running as he drags himself to the door. Thank God neither Sam nor Dean are home. 

Sometimes, modesty has to wait. 

He pushes open the door and half-crawls to the translating room. His notes stare innocuously at him from the walls and he bites a scream back. Kevin uses the table to pull himself up, muscles straining and room spinning around him till he wants to be sick with it. The tablet sits exactly where he left it, immutable and unknown. 

With a yell, he crumples a handful of pages beside the Word of God and then throws them far as he can. They go maybe half a foot before landing. Not satisfying at all and helplessness wells up with those crumpled papers. Kevin braces himself against the table, staring down at the tablet that he hasn’t translated a word of. Blood drips down from his nose to splatter onto the stone. He makes no move to wipe it away.

How could this have happened? And why didn’t he realize before? Does this mean he can’t translate the Word of God anymore? Did Metatron write this tablet in gibberish so that no one could unlock its secrets?

Kevin sucks in deep breaths, eyes burning. He rubs at them and then turns his gaze to his mess of notes, connected by strings. 

Sometimes, you want something so bad, you invent it. Make it seem real and _believe it_ , except that, as a house built on an imagined foundation is destined to fall, neither can such a dream remain. Kevin scrunches shut his eyes as a particularly painful throb has him gasp. What can he do, besides scrap everything? What can he do, except sit down and try to translate? Who can do this, except for him?

He finds the word he had translated into Heaven. Normally, the words come to him in bits and pieces, in flashes and bursts. But now, when the idea of _Heaven_ comes to him, it’s only because he wants it. And oh, does he want it. 

No other word comes to him, though. Not right away. Kevin collapses into his chair. His blood splatters onto the tablet, filling in some of the grooves.

Eventually, his nose stops bleeding. He lets the blood dry on the tablet. 

* * *

It’s another week before his translating yields the first symbol. Even though he has no idea what it means, it’s a start. 

* * *

Dean catches him pouring coffee. “Hey, Kev. We’re home,” says Dean, like it isn’t completely obvious by his presence. 

All Kevin can do is nod. He has no idea how to tell Dean that he’s translating the tablet into ancient symbols he hasn’t found in any of the Men of Letters books. “Hi.” Kevin tries for a smile or something, but it comes out all wrong, twisted and insincere. “How’d the hunt go?”

Eyes sharp and mouth pursed, Dean examines him. He opens his mouth to comment, then seems to think better of it with a shut. Mostly, that’s a relief. Kevin doesn’t need to be told he looks like shit. Even though he promised Sam, he hasn’t been sleeping. “Awesome. Just a quick salt and burn. No problem,” but he keeps watching Kevin too intent.

Kevin pours Dean a mug of coffee. For once, Dean keeps his dumb speeches to himself and doesn’t ask about the translating. He lets Kevin sip his drink in peace. Maybe he can tell that Kevin’s crawling out of his skin with frustration. Maybe he can tell Kevin hasn’t been eating or sleeping. Maybe he just is tired from the hunt or worried about Sam, or something. Honestly, Kevin never knows with him.

The coffee is hot and acrid on his tongue; his mouth tastes stale with it. Given that he forgot to brush his teeth after giving up on sleeping last night, that’s not such a surprise. Though, it is completely disgusting. Kevin pulls a face that has Dean laughing, eyes crinkling in the corners with surprised mirth. “Not a fan?” 

“I didn’t even _like_ coffee before I became a prophet. But I need the caffeine and energy drinks make me anxious.” Kevin takes a slug of his coffee to punctuate his point. 

“Taking a break?” Dean changes the subject, because Dean is good at avoiding anything unpleasant. “I was gonna grab some popcorn and watch Clint Eastwood movies. Wanna watch?”

Kevin pauses to blink at him just long enough it gets awkward. Probably because Kevin _is_ awkward. He hasn’t talked to anyone for a week, so it’s amazing that he remembers human interaction at all. “Sure. What about Sam?” Because Kevin doesn’t think he’ll ever be used to not seeing one Winchester shadowing the other. It’s a basic law of the universe, as the Earth revolves around the sun, the Winchesters circle each other.

“Sam? Oh. Hunt tuckered him out. He went to bed.” But Dean’s expression is guarded, sizing Kevin up, and Kevin hates to be found wanting before Dean even knows that Kevin can’t do the one thing he’s supposed to do.

“Meaning you were worried about him, so you put him to bed.” Kevin grins, mirthless. “I know how you are. It’s been month since the Trials and he seems… mostly okay. Maybe you’re… I don’t know. Overreacting?”

After it comes out of his mouth, Kevin realizes what a total idiot he is. Nothing is overreacting when it comes to Sam, not when you’re Dean Winchester; Sam died and Dean almost immediately sold his soul to a demon. And that was just the beginning. Normal rules don’t apply to the Winchesters, not when it comes to family. (Kevin tries not to think about his mom selling her soul for his freedom. Tries to forget the vacant air of her after Crowley smoked out.)

Dean pulls two bags of popcorn from one of the cabinets. Grinning like a kid with a new toy, He holds them up for Kevin’s inspection. “Buttered and everything, kid. You pussying out or are you going to watch Unforgiven like a real man?”

With that attack on his masculinity, how could Kevin refuse? He matches Dean’s grin. “Yeah. Okay.”

They pop both bags, because, as Dean puts it, he doesn’t want “Kevin’s weird prophet cooties”. Honestly, Kevin doesn’t care either way. Probably Dean just wants an excuse to eat a whole bag of popcorn. They sit on one of the couches in the community room that Dean prefers with the laptop resting on the table. The screen is a tad small, but Kevin can’t remember the last time he relaxed and watched a movie—and it’s been even longer since he relaxed and watched a movie with someone else. 

While the movie loads, Dean blusters the whole time about what a travesty it is that Kevin hasn’t watched Unforgiven yet. Then he rattles off at least three other Clint Eastwood movies they’re evidently going to watch. Something warm settles into Kevin’s chest as he chews his popcorn. 

Kevin doesn’t make it through Unforgiven. 

His eyes droop, like there are weights attached to his eyelids. His head lolls—his last thought, before sleep finally claims him, is that he hopes his head doesn’t end up somewhere embarrassing. Like on Dean’s shoulder. 

 

When he wakes, the room is dark. Dean and the computer are gone, but there’s a musty-smelling quilt draped over him and a glass of water within arm’s reach. With a groan, he curls tighter under the covers and decides never to move again, so warm he sinks immediately back into slumber. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: drug abuse/dependence and alcohol abuse by a minor (depending on where you live. Where the character is, he is considered a minor), and nightmares.

It figures that Crowley would be the only one able to translate the cuneiform into English. Kevin curls up afterwards on the couch in the translating room. The room spins round and round, till his stomach settles uncomfortably in his throat, and his hands shake hard enough that it takes minutes to pull the blanket over himself. He didn’t even lose that much blood. At least, he doesn’t think he did—but who the hell knows? Kevin is no doctor and his main experience with blood loss comes from that time Crowley chopped off his pinky. 

“Hey. How are you feeling?” Sam looms over Kevin, surprising that someone of his girth can sneak up on him. All doe-eyed concern and warm hands on Kevin’s shoulders, he asks, “Have you eaten anything?”

Kevin says, “I”m… Okay? I think? I mean. There’s still more tablet to translate into cuneiform and then… We either have to find a way to translate it ourselves, or we have to get Crowley to do it.”

He glances over at his table where the tablet is just _waiting for him_. Kevin tilts his head back to examine Sam. Brows furrowed, Sam meets his gaze like he’s trying to puzzle something out, or maybe he just feels bad. Not that that’s anything new. Sam hasn’t looked at Kevin without his face shadowed with guilt since the brothers had tracked Kevin down to that church. Honestly, Kevin’s starting to think they maybe should work past the thing where Sam dumped his ass for a dog.

Then again, kinda hard to forget the part where Kevin almost got Sam killed with the Trials. Maybe they’re even. He looks down at his still-shaking hands so he doesn’t have to meet Sam’s gaze. “If there isn’t a way to open the gates of Heaven, what are you hoping to find?” asks Sam. 

“Well…” Kevin looks up at that, chewing the inside of his cheek long enough for him to taste blood. “I mean, looking at who wrote it, I’m thinking the tablet might reflect some bias. It wasn’t written by God, only on his orders. And if you had a dollar for every time an angel didn’t do exactly what God intended, you’d be rich, right? So, I think it’s likely that Metatron wouldn’t want the information on the angel tablet to be accessible, especially for a human prophet. It would explain why the angel tablet can’t be translated into a usable language. It’s coded specifically to keep the Prophet from understanding it. My best guess is he pulled every trick in the book to keep the contents secret.”

Sam frowns down at him. “Well, the tablet’ll still be here after you rest, shortstop. First, we’re going to get some food and orange juice in you, then you’re going to sleep. You’re not looking so great.”

Kevin bites back a snarl about how he just gave blood to the demon who murdered his mother. Instead, he asks, “What are we going to do about transiting the cuneiform into English?” because Kevin doesn’t—he doesn’t want to deal with Crowley every time he translates another chapter of the tablet, but it would be just his luck if he had to, wouldn’t it?

“I don’t know, Kevin,” he says, exhaustion drawing out the words, “I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, don’t try to deal with Crowley yourself, understood?”

A nod seems to appease Sam, because he walks out, shoulders hunched. Later, he returns with a slice of Dean’s pecan pie and a glass of orange juice. Without glancing up from the tablet, Kevin nods his thanks. The symbols swim past his gaze, dizzying, but he has to try. That’s all he can do, is translate: he doesn’t want to think about Crowley, or his mom, or Channing. He doesn’t want to think about Dean’s secrets or Sam’s guilt or Metatron’s treachery or Cas out there by himself or Garth possibly dead simply from proximity to Kevin. So he doesn’t. 

Instead he works as he drinks the orange juice, pauses to eat the pie that sits sickly sweet and uneasy in his stomach. Sam doesn’t bother him after that; Kevin isn’t sure whether to be grateful or disappointed. 

* * *

Within a few days, Sam and Dean are gone on another hunt. Kevin swallows, clutching the sheets of notes to his chest. They’re still no closer to finding another way to translate the cuneiform, and he needs to be done with this. Screw what anybody else thinks. So he opens the door to Crowley’s cell. “Well, well,” Crowley says, smirk curving his mouth, eyes dark, “To what am I owed the pleasure, Kev?”

Kevin runs his tongue over his bottom lip—which, okay, mistake, because now Crowley is looking at his mouth, and heat licks up the back of Kevin’s neck—then steps inside. “I need you to translate this.”

Taking in the sheaf of paper in his hands, Crowley arches an eyebrow at him. Kevin wishes, suddenly, that he brought more than a bottle of holy water, and the image of his mother sitting like her puppet-strings had been cut flashes in his mind’s eye. Fear curdles to anger in the pit of his stomach, and maybe that is the blessing. 

“It’s going to cost you,” says Crowley, lips curling around the words.

With a grimace, Kevin snaps, “I can’t let you out, so don’t even think about it.”

“The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind,” he replies, smooth and slippery as ice. “No, Kevin. I don’t even want any blood this time. Instead, we’re going to have a nice chat, you and I. You stay and talk with me for thirty minutes, then I’ll translate your words. How does that sound, Kev? You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”

Kevin frowns, glancing down at his notes. “Tick tock, Kevin,” purrs Crowley when the silence stretches too long. 

“Fine. We’ll talk. Then, you translate this. In writing.” Kevin nails dig crescents in his palms. He tells himself it’s better than forcing Crowley to drink every last drop of holy water in this damn bunker and laughing the entire time. 

“Glad to have come to an agreement so quickly,” he says, smirking, “Let’s seal this deal, shall we?”

Kevin slams his hand down on the table. “No more games! This is how it’s going to work: we chat, then you translate. If you don’t do what you’ve agreed to, I’m going to inject you with gallons of holy water, and you’re not seeing anyone until the Winchesters get back. Which, you know as well as I do, could be weeks.”

Crowley blinks, before he smiles, eyes glittering with delight. “Well, well. You have improved your sweet-talk, haven’t you? Fine. We have an accord, then.”

And he still is so damn smug Kevin wants to rip him apart. Instead, he takes a seat in the chair across from Crowley and glances down at his watch. “It’s 8:45. You have until 9:15.”

“How have you been, Kev? I don’t think I ever got the chance to know you like I wanted to. You’re just so slippery,” Crowley sneers the last word. 

“I’ve been fine,” he snaps, drumming his fingertips on the table, and god, how is he going to make it through half an hour of Crowley? “Not my fault that you underestimated me. Just convenient.”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Of course. I had nearly forgotten how you had bested me as I listened to the sweet sound of your mother begging me for mercy.”

He grits his teeth, but can’t help the way his hands shake, can’t help the way he scrunches his eyes tight with an attempt to not imagine it. Kevin sees her face and Crowley’s knife. It’s so easy to remember the pain of losing his pinkie, to envision that pain for her, and he wants—he wants his mother back, but, failing that, he wants Crowley to feel everything Kevin’s had to endure. Kevin pushes a breath out slow, open’s his eyes to see Crowley’s smug face. “I’m not the one who finally lost his throne,” he bites out.

“It’s temporary, of course,” but Crowley doesn’t sound so sure of himself anymore. 

He opens his mouth with a retort, before he snaps it shut again. If he has to be here for twenty-five more minutes, then it’s not going to be shooting barbs back and forth the whole time; Crowley will always win, with the specters of Channing, his mom, and maybe Garth standing shadowed behind his shoulder. The only way to make it through this is to steer the topic to less dangerous territory.

Which is how they end up talking about the Carver Edlund books. And while Kevin can’t forget that Crowley used those books to kill innocent people, Crowley can’t forget that the Winchesters are probably going to be the ones to kill him in the near future. So it works out pretty well, all things considered. 

Crowley, as it turns out, has a beautiful grasp of how symbolism in the books comes together, and they argue for a good fifteen minutes over what the theme of “Sin City” is, before Kevin glances down at his watch. “9:16. Time’s up, Crowley.” He pushes the papers in front of the demon. “Better get cozy.”

It surprises Kevin, but Crowley picks up the pen and begins translating without any fuss. Something has changed about him since he came to the bunker. Kevin doesn’t know what and, to be honest, he doesn’t really care. It’s just a relief to get some of this translated. Once Crowley finishes, Kevin takes his things and leaves without another word as Crowley sullenly watches him leave. 

* * *

Honestly, it’s sort of a testament to the direction his life has taken that, from then on, he sees Crowley more frequently and regularly than he sees either Sam or Dean. 

* * *

 “Hey, whoa, whoa. You can’t shoot like that,” Dean tells him, gripping Kevin’s shoulder tight enough it nearly hurts, has Kevin imagining the dark dusting of bruises where Dean’s fingers press, and Kevin tenses, nearly wanting it, “Have you touched a gun once since we left, kid?”

Kevin almost snaps that no, he hasn’t, because his head has been attempting to murder him, because he has had to deal with Crowley for a week, because translating the Word of God into cuneiform isn’t a walk in the park. But instead, he shakes his head. “Sorry.”

“Okay, okay. How about we call it a night? We’ll try it again later,” Dean says, and Kevin nearly sags with relief. Sometimes, Dean can be the most insensitive asshole of any human he’s ever met and Kevin wants to scream with it, but Dean has this uncanny ability to avoiding the things that make him uncomfortable. Especially when it comes to the feelings of others, which means that Kevin’s issues can quietly be swept under the rug. Which is honestly a relief sometimes.

He hands the gun back to Dean. His throat feels raw as he tries to agree. “Sorry,” he says instead, rubbing at his eyes, “I just… I wasn’t expecting you guys to be back so soon. I thought you’d call or something. I don’t know.”

Dean stashes away the guns, looking at the target Kevin hadn’t even taken a shot at before Dean had stripped him of firearm privileges, then turns back at him. “Don’t worry about it. Dude, you’ve gotta take better care of yourself.”

“Yeah. I know,” he says, because he does but that’s all anybody says to him anymore. _How is the translating going. You need to take care of yourself._ Well, except Crowley, but Dean can’t know about that. 

Warm hands on his shoulders, Dean steers Kevin out of the practice range. He lets himself be directed and pushed and prodded by Dean before he finds himself in his room. “Get some sleep or something, okay? Seriously. Take a break. We’re getting the angel thing under control, so just… Don’t drive yourself crazy. Stay cool, man.”

Kevin is sitting on his bed and looking up at Dean. His brows furrow and he says, “I guess I just… My head kind of hurts.” Not unusual, really, but he doesn’t remember if he took meds or not, so he doesn’t know if he can have more. “How did the hunt go?”

“Good. We’ll tell you all about it once you’ve got some shut-eye, yeah?” Dean says, turning to leave.

And Kevin just watches him leave again, and flops back to stare at the ceiling. Maybe he should get some of those glow in the dark stars up there, something to prove this is his space, even if it isn’t. At the very least, it would be something to look at.  

* * *

 Kevin has nightmares near every time he sleeps, now. 

Sometimes, he dreams about the Winchesters out hunting, whole hunts his subconscious invents, and they play through. Those one are sort of creepy because they almost seem like really innocent fanfiction of Carver Edlund's books. But he doesn't mind those so much, except for how it feels too much like toying with their lives. Plus the weird factor. Once, he has a dream about Cas twirling his angel blade in his hands. Cas spends the whole night polishing it and Kevin surprises himself by wishing he could reach out. But he wakes in the bunker where Cas still isn’t and wonders, as he blearily makes his way to the kitchen for coffee, why the hell he’s dreaming about this shit. At any rate, they’re better than the nightmares. 

Crowley stars in most of his other dreams. 

The whole room stinks like blood, and Crowley looms over him with his smug smile. Wrists raw from the ropes tying him to the chair, Kevin wishes—again and again—that the Winchesters had taught him to escape from rope rather than how to shoot a gun. He’s a Houdini, not a Bruce Lee. Crowley leans down, the white-hot knife so close to Kevin’s face that the heat coming off it makes sweat slide down his face. It definitely isn’t fear that has him sweating. 

"So, Kev," Crowley draws out the syllables, watching Kevin watching the knife, "Tell me something true."

And Kevin opens his mouth to give him _everything_ , but Channing stands behind Crowley, her neck turned at an impossible angle, and she somehow shakes her head, or maybe he imagines it. Maybe her head is just flopping around because it doesn’t have support, and he just thinks she is shaking her head. Regardless, he sucks in a breath and then spits into Crowley's face. 

It splatters over the demon's chin, and Kevin wonders if maybe he should work on his aim. There must be some sort of skill he's missing, because he wanted to hit Crowley's eye. 

He bets the Winchesters have perfect aim and can spit into people’s eyes every time.

But, as it turns out, he's not the only with eyes on the brain. The knife comes forward, so that Kevin can see the very tip of it, he opens his mouth, to scream, to beg, to tell him what he wants to know, and then Channing's hand is warm over his, and—

He wakes bathed in sweat with tears streaming down his face. Just for a breath, he thinks he can feel Channing's hand curled protectively over his. That, more that anything, is what has him sobbing into his pillow again. 

For some reason, he can't get back to sleep after that. 

* * *

He's in the gym, working with the punching bag, when Sam finds him. "Hey, Kevin," he says, and Kevin jumps, twirling to face him, fists up protectively between himself and the threat. Once he sees it’s Sam, Kevin lowers his hands.  

"Sam. Hey," he pants, shirt clinging wetly to his skin, "What's up?"

"I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. You've been... Dean and I are worried. Have you been sleeping? Dean told me about the other night.” Sam leans in the doorway, giving Kevin space. He looks pretty good today, eyes heavy and splotched dark underneath, still too-thin, but good other than that. 

Kevin turns back to the bag. No. He has not been sleeping. ( _H_ _is mom wears Crowley's smirk, eyes blood-stain red, and_ _coos_ _, "Kevin, dear_ _—_ _“_ ) "Not really," he tells Sam as he unwinds the bandages from his fists, “Haven't felt like it." 

Without even looking, he can see Sam's disapproving expression till Kevin bristles with it, frustration a tense hot coil in his stomach. Kevin drops the bandaging onto the table by the door, before he turns and meets Sam's gaze. Sam takes a step nearer, but keeps his hands to himself, probably because Kevin reeks. Honestly, he doesn't remember how long he's been in here, but if the ache in his hands and knuckles, the burn in his shoulders and lower back are any indication he’s probably worked out too long. He lifts his gaze to stare at Sam's forehead instead of his eyes. "I know this is really hard on you," slow and coaxing, the only way Sam ever talks to him, like Kevin’s a wild animal that Sam’s been elected to tame, "How about we go for coffee?"

"Coffee? We have coffee. You just picked some up yesterday,” Kevin says, confused, because, he is well-informed on how much caffeine exists in the bunker on any given day.

"No. I mean—“ Sam pauses to laugh. "I mean out for coffee. Like normal people.”

He frowns, tilting his head to look at Sam. Sure, they had taken Kevin to that hotel a few weeks ago, but everyone has sort of agreed that he should probably stay in the bunker. Or Sam and Dean agreed, and Kevin’s opinion doesn’t matter. "You sure?" he asks, realizes too late how stupid he sounds. 

"Yeah. We'll bring the demon knife and some holy water. It'll be fine.” Sam smiles down at him. “But you should go shower first, man. You’re disgusting.”

Well, Kevin would be stupid to not take him up on the offer of normality, so Kevin does go shower and change. Feels almost human afterwards, too. Sam obviously thinks so, too, because when he sees Kevin, he grins. “So there was a boy under there after all.” But his smile falls as Kevin tries to figure out whether there is or not. 

They take the Impala. Sam drives, even though Dean complains as they're leaving—“not a scratch, Sammy, you hear me?" like Sam has never driven Dean's car before. The nearest town is a good distance away, but Sam cranks the radio up and miraculously finds a station that isn't Christian, country, or classic rock. Kevin finds himself bobbing along with a pop song he hasn't heard before while Sam pretends to watch the road. It works out pretty well, all things considered. 

The green Starbucks mermaid watches them as Sam parks the car, and Kevin’s eyes water as he stares back at her. They step inside the coffee shop and he closes his eyes against the sharp smell of coffee, against the clamor of so many voices. It’s a weird thing to think about, but it’s been awhile since he’s seen this many people all in one place. A few weeks, at least, since he got super drunk at that bar. His head pounds, a sharp hot reminder he forgot to take his meds today. Sam puts a hand on his shoulder, the weight warm and grounding. “Know what you want?"

"Yeah.”

"What can I get you today?" asks the guy behind the counter as they approach, and Kevin looks at the three piercings he has in his left ear with interest. 

Sam says, "An Americano with room, please."

"Um," Kevin says when they both look at him, "Could I get a soy mocha without whip cream. Please?”

"Sure thing," says the barista as he rings up their total. 

With a grin and a murmured, "Thanks," Sam pays the bill with a card that is totally illegal. Kevin knows he should feel bad about stealing money for something so mundane, but honestly he’s just glad for some espresso. They sit at an empty table in the corner of the shop. 

"So... Have you been doing anything at all besides translating?" asks Sam. 

Which—Kevin should have seen this coming. All this is is an opportunity for Sam to lecture Kevin and asks questions where Kevin can’t escape. Fantastic. He lets a smile twist his mouth, and his temples throb. "I research for you guys," he points out, lifting his eyebrows. 

Sam laughs uncomfortable and huge, but shakes his head so his hair partially obscures his eyes. "Something for fun?" He pushes the strands of hair from his face.

He could remind Sam that he's a red-blooded human, so he beats off sometimes, but somehow, that seems like a shitty topic to bring up right now, even if the look on Sam's face would be priceless. Kevin doesn't think he should aspire to be more like Dean. "Not really, I guess," he shrugs. "I get really focused on translating. I told you.”

"You said that you used to play the cello to help with that.” 

Kevin frowns, drumming his fingers on the table. "Right. You’re right, but even if I _had_ a cello… Sam, all I want is to get the tablet translated. I want to be done with it, you know? Move onto something else.”

"I get that, I do," says Sam, leaning forward, "But you need Crowley's help. At least until we can translate the cuneiform ourselves. Dean and I can’t always be around to take care of that, so I just... I think it would be better if you slowed down. Took better care of yourself."

"Yeah? Like you've been doing?" Kevin asks, pressing his hands flat against the table. “You still look like crap from the Trials. I mean, you’re looking better, I guess, but you’re not totally recovered, and everyone knows it. So what are you doing? You're out hunting with Dean."

Sam rescues himself from having to respond momentarily by retrieving their drinks. When he hands Kevin his mocha, he opens his mouth, but Kevin cuts him off, because he’s not done and sometime, they’ve got to start listening to him or Kevin might go crazy. Again.

"What I'm saying is that I'm an adult, Sam. I know you feel responsible for me, but I'm capable of making my own decisions. Sometimes, I'm even going to make bad ones. I'm nineteen. It happens. I'm not perfect, okay? I’m not even close. Look. My life is, well, it's pretty much a disaster. But that isn't your fault. You didn't make me a prophet. That was God. You didn't kill Channing or my mom. That was Crowley. You've pretty much helped me when you could. But you have to stop babying me and lecturing me over every little thing. Or, at the very least, practice what you preach. I like hanging out and everything, even the fighting lessons are growing on me. But I don't need the constant reminders to eat and sleep. Sam, I'm smart. I _know_ that I haven't slept. I _know_ when I last ate. Sure, if I go crazy again, please. Do something about it. Until then? Trust that I'm doing the best I can. Trust _me_."

Sam looks down at where his giant hands are wrapped around his cup, a muscle in his cheek working. "I guess I haven't.... I get on Dean's case about not trusting me, and I never stopped to think..." Sam shakes his head, hair falling into his face again. "I'm sorry. But don’t think I’m going to sit by if there's something I can do for you." 

Kevin nods, because, well. It's sort of hard to blame Sam for remembering that panicky, floppy-haired teenager Kevin was. Not to mention the specter of Sam’s abandonment for that year. 

“I know. Just lay off the crappy speeches, and we'll be cool. You're not my mother, Sam. Seriously. It’s creepy.” Kevin tries for a smile and thinks he succeeds by the way Sam snorts into his coffee, tension in his shoulders bleeding off. 

He takes another sip of his mocha, glancing around the Starbucks. It's clean and vibrant and exactly the kind of place he loved going to in Michigan. "You think if I work on Dean a bit, he'll take me hunting sometime?" he asks over the alternative rock in the background.

"Yeah, right.” Sam laughs at him. "Keep dreaming, kid.”

He sighs, licking a spot of coffee off the lid. Honestly, given his aim, he'd be surprised if Dean ever let him near a gun again, even in an emergency. Kevin isn't going to be the next Han Solo any time soon. Or, hell, even the next Katniss. “I didn’t think you were interested in hunting. Why now?” Sam asks, brows furrowed. 

"It's not the hunting I'm interested in, really. I just… want to be able to help. Now that I know about the supernatural... it seems, I don't know, irresponsible not to do my part, I guess,” Kevin shrugs.

In a perfect world, Kevin would go to college. Do something with his life. He isn't sure what. Somewhere along the way, becoming President stopped sounding appealing, but he'd do something important. Then again, in a perfect world, there wouldn't be monsters hiding in the shadows to kill innocent people. Hunting wouldn't be his first, or even his fifth choice, but—well, now that he knows about the monster under the bed, he wants to find a way to fight back and help other people be safe too. And, it would give him a way out of the bunker regularly and a chance for actual human interaction that has nothing to do with translating. 

(Not to mention, he’d have fewer opportunities to see Crowley.)

Sam's expression softens, so that Kevin can almost believe he actually cares about Kevin as a person and not a responsibility. He puts his hand on Kevin’s head, ruffling his hair. "You're more than doing your part translating and researching. You don’t need to hunt, too. I mean, you’re what, nineteen? And you’ve already been instrumental in saving the world? How many kids can say that?”

"No. I don't need to hunt too. It's never been about needing to, though. You guys don't need to anymore, either. But you do. It isn't so different, I guess," he shrugs, because he doesn't know how to explain to Sam that, sometimes, you just need a place to direct all the anger and fear built up inside before you pop.

But maybe he doesn't need to. Sam's left the family business at least twice that Kevin knows about. Sam knows hunting isn't the end-all-be-all, but he comes back to it anyway. He could do something, anything else, but he chooses not to. Maybe he gets where Kevin is coming from. "We'll see what Dean says," Sam relents after a moment, "I can't make any promises."

Kevin lets a grin flit across his face. "Sounds good to me."

And it does. Because, well, he doesn't really want their promises. Sam or Dean's. He wants something else from them and he's starting to think maybe he'll get it. As they're leaving, Kevin likes to think that Sam seems more relaxed than he was when they went in. 

Maybe, once they get back, he'll try to sleep, if only to make Sam happy.  

* * *

Of course, Dean says, "absolutely not," next time Sam and him find a hunt, which gives Kevin the opportunity to have Crowley translate more of the cuneiform. Every time that Kevin asks him for help, though, Crowley adds five minutes, until Kevin is spending upwards of an hour in Crowley's cell at a time. 

They discuss everything from history to science to the Bible, which Kevin still needs to finish reading. Naturally, they shoot barbs back and forth too, but that's just par for the course with the Prophet of the Lord and the ex-King of Hell. Kevin and Crowley fall into a routine, anyway: Kevin comes in every few days, they chat, Crowley translates, then Kevin organizes and analyzes the new information in his translating room. Maybe it really sucks, because Kevin has never hated anyone as much as he hates Crowley, but he gets what he needs, so. It could be worse, all things considered. 

 

It doesn't hurt, either, that the Winchesters have plenty of booze in the bunker. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: drug abuse/dependence and alcohol abuse by a minor (depending on where you live. Where the character is drinking, he is considered a minor), nightmares, and imagined canon-typical violence.
> 
> Kevin goes to a fairly dark mental space this chapter. Just FYI.

Eyes demon-black, Channing sits cross-legged on his bed and grins at him. “You know, Kevin,” she says, off-handed, that tone she reserved for when he’d done a math problem wrong and wasn’t sure how to break it to him, “Nobody but your mom missed you after you left. Not Red, not Scott, not even Megan. And with you gone, I was valedictorian. My dad was proud of me, you know? Your mom, though, she didn’t even come to my graduation. For some reason, she stopped talking to me after I said what a relief it was for you to be gone.”

His heart drops down down, and his fingers twitch to feel the smooth heat of her skin one last time. Instead, he pulls away. “Channing,” he gasps out, like her name from his lips will bring her back, will somehow save her. Like, somehow, he can manage to do one good thing.

She cups his face. Thumbing over his cheekbones, her forehead touches his as she settles into his space, like she belongs as easily as she did before. Channing breathes his air to expel it laughing, digging her fingernails into his flesh. Laughter crow-like and hard, it’s nothing like how she laughed that time he was late to an orchestra concert and ran face-first into a wall. 

Pain flares where she drags her painted nails into him—any deeper and his skin will part for her and he’ll drip red over her hands. 

“Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, you’re just too easy.” Her breath ghosts his face. 

If he shuts his eyes, he can forget that the eyes are wrong, can almost forget that she could crush his head into putty if she chose. Kevin leans into her touch and inhales, can't forget that she smells like sulphur not citrus shampoo. When she bites into his lower lip, she tastes acrid like smoke. Which means he shouldn't kiss back, shouldn't try and get closer to her, but he does. Shit, he does, and he can't ignore the snide laugh that earns him as he presses into her touch. "I know you're a virgin," she tells him, voice dark and gritty, like black black day-old coffee, "It was all here in Channing's head. You were waiting until graduation, weren't you? Had it all planned out. That's sweet, you know. Makes me want to throw up a little. Teach you what fucking is really about."

Kevin considers pulling back. If he were smart, he would run or find holy water, something, anything, except lean into the sweltering heat of her. Blood trickles down hot where her nails tear at him. The pain barely registers, now. “Channing,” his voice high and breathy, “Channing, please, God, you’re in there, please, God, please. It’s me, it’s Kevin.”

Channing laughs at him again, pulling back from him, and he tries to follow—even as his gaze locks on the dark stain of his blood on her orange nails. Her power pins him hard to the wall as her eyes flick black and she approaches again, close enough to touch. 

“She’s awake in here, Kevin. And she’s going to watch every second while I peel your skin off your bones,” the demon wearing Channing promises—

He wakes screaming when the knife slides wetly into his flesh. 

Sweat slicks his skin, clothes and sheets soaked with it, tears drying to salt on his face. Kevin breathes and shivers and breathes, before he looks to his clock. God, only 2:07—he went to sleep like two hours ago. He rolls out of bed, barely landing on his feet and keeps wavering after that. The sweat cools sticky against his skin, hands jittery and teeth chattering with what might be chill, and his heart pounds harsh and fast. Kevin moves to flick the lights on, blinks at the sudden flare of brightness and pain that accompanies the light, shooting straight to the insides of his brain, till he hisses and shuts his eyes. 

The room spins as he sees her behind his eyelids: obsidian-eyed Channing with her curved smirk, can nearly feel her pumpkin-painted fingernails tearing into him, ripping him open for her to examine— _shit_. He gropes for his meds, finds a bottle and the cap falls at his touch. He dry swallows a few of the pills before he realizes the shape is wrong. 

Kevin opens his eyes—no, shit, Excederin, that has caffeine, so much caffeine and he—he tugs at his hair, hears some raw animal sound from somewhere, maybe him. All he wants is to sleep, to forget her face for just long enough to catch his breath, he just wants to sleep. Sam was right. Everything would be better if he could just sleep. 

Which is how he winds up in the kitchen, opening the bottle of Jack Dean left on the fridge. Kevin  _knows_ better. Kevinknows _better_ , but he does it anyway. Because, he hasn't slept well in months ( _years?_ ), because his head hurts, because he misses Channing so much he can't breathe sometimes and he still only dreams of her being dead or demonic. Besides, the likelihood of him living long enough to have to deal with the ensuing liver damage is slim to none. 

He gulps down a couple mouthfuls of whiskey. 

* * *

Not long after, he does manage to sleep again. 

But it does nothing for the nightmares (Garth this time, in pieces; Kevin is left with his rotting index finger in hand) and when he wakes sobbing, his head throbs with his heart. 

This time, he avoids the painkillers. 

Kevin does, however, down more of the Jack to smooth out the jagged edges of his life. Unsurpisingly, what he gets for his trouble is another hangover. 

* * *

Crowley appraises him as Kevin walks in with his most recent collection of translations. "Rough night, Kev?" he asks, lifting an eyebrow. 

"I'm fine," Kevin snaps, even though they both can tell he slept like shit and reeks of booze and sweat. 

He sits, ready for their chat, when Crowley holds up a hand. "I thought we'd shake things up today. How's it sound, Kev? Think you're up for a little experimentation?" He smirks at Kevin, but his fingers tap erratic on the desk—nervous? What could make Crowley nervous? Abaddon?  Mismatched socks?

Considering that it's Crowley he's talking to, this can go nowhere good. But Kevin sighs, leaning back in his seat.  "What do you want, Crowley?"

"A little blood. Just a syringe-full," he says, eyes bright with desire. 

There's so much wrong with that Kevin can’t even—he shakes his head, "Do you think I'm stupid?" he snaps. "You're not making any more phone calls. And I'm not giving you anything you can bite me in the ass with. So forget it." Crowley is a witch. Kevin _knows_ that Crowley could do some nasty stuff with a _little blood_. 

Crowley glares at him, eyes narrowed. "I'm going to inject myself with it. Like during the Third Trial. You can watch as I do so, if that’s less offensive to your sensibilities.”

That makes Kevin still, blinking at Crowley for a few moments. Why the hell would Crowley want…? Kevin licks at his cracked lips, the fog that settled over his brain making it hard to focus. There are a million reasons why this is an awful idea. Reason number one, it’s Crowley. Reason number two is… Kevin rubs at his temples. "Moose already knows," says Crowley, voice quiet, "It's addictive. I want more. You can watch me. C'mon, Kev. It'll be easier than chatting with me. I’ll translate everything you have there for one little syringe of blood. You won’t even miss it.”

Kevin licks his lips again, and shuts his eyes tight. He should call Sam or Dean, but that would be admitting he went to see Crowley when they expressly told him not to. And—and he doesn't want to talk to Crowley anymore, because if Crowley doesn't get what he wants, he'll probably spend the whole time Kevin's a captive audience talking about his mom or Channing. It seems easier to just give Crowley the blood. Think smarter not harder, right?  

He finds a syringe, then draws the blood out. Crowley's eyes shut, and he releases a soft groan that sounds almost pornographic as he injects it into his neck.  

Without a single complaint, Crowley translates all three pages Kevin brought today. 

"Thank you," he says after, examining Kevin's face as though he's never seen it before. There's something significant here, but hell if Kevin knows what it is. His head throbs and he feels woozy, the whole world blurring around him. 

Crowley laughs as Kevin staggers out, even as he leaves Crowley alone in the dark. And Kevin thinks he should be the one laughing, but something is happening and he doesn’t understand what, and he wants—hell, he isn’t sure what he wants, but it isn’t any of this.

Kevin exits Crowley's cell to sit at the huge communal table. The whole bunker is quiet; he can barely hear the humming of the ancient lamps over his own ragged breathing. He should be translating, should be researching, should be looking over Crowley's work, but he isn’t. Sam and Dean are gone. Hell, he could really go for a movie or a spar or anything. With a low groan, he lays his head on the table, the cool wood a blessing against his heated skin. 

Time passes as a crawl he measures by the steady rise and fall of his breathing. Kevin considers drinking more Jack, to see if it will make him sleep. Then, he considers taking more painkillers to see if it would help him work or if it would make his head stop pounding with every beat of his heart. 

But he doesn’t.

 They have words for people who solve their problems with medication and booze. And he's not an actual Winchester. 

He stands and doesn't stumble this time. At the very least, he is steadier now, capable again. Maybe he shouldn't go practice his marksmanship like he swore to Dean he would, but he can do other things. Like drive a car. 

Kevin bites his lip, looks over at the door. He still has a key. They'd found an extra in the bunker a few weeks ago, the boys have one and Kevin has one. There are extra cars down in the garage, which he has keys to "in case of an emergency" according to Sam. Kevin should stay in the bunker, but if he spends one more second alone with his thoughts and Crowley—Kevin rubs at his temples. Sam had taken him out for Starbucks. Had thought it was safe enough. If he goes quick, gets his coffee, doesn't stay too long... He'll be okay. He's smart. He'll take some holy water. 

First though, he needs a shower, because he is truly a disgusting human being. So he does that, before heading down to the garage, hair still damp against his forehead.

When he slides the key into the ignition of the most subtle car they have, he half expects Sam and Dean to stop him. They don't, because they're still on their hunt, and Kevin figures that's as much of a blessing as he's going to get. 

The funny thing is, back before becoming a prophet, he didn’t much like driving. His mom had forced him to learn but it wasn't anything he had enjoyed. Now, though, it feels good, feels like—at the risk of sounding cliched—it offers him the taste of freedom again. Kevin leans his head back against the seat, closes his eyes, and listens to the engine purr. Hopefully, it doesn't break down, because he'll have a hard time explaining any of this to Dean. For all of a minute, he considers driving into the distance and not coming back. 

But he has a job, and, if nothing else, the bunker is relatively safe.

Kevin remembers the way to the Starbucks, even if he goes slow so he can double and triple check no one is following him. By time he gets there, he’s pretty sure he spent more time checking the mirrors than watching the road ahead of him.

This time, there's a woman behind the counter. She's nearly as tall as him, with blonde curly hair and bright eyes behind black rectangle-framed glasses. "Hello," she says, looking at him curiously, and he knows for a fact he showered this morning, so he has that social convention down, so he hunches wondering what she sees, "What can I get you today?"  

"Um... Just a large drip, please?" he asks, because he only has a crumpled five on him. 

She smiles at him encouragingly, even though her brows are slightly furrowed, and shit, he didn't think he looked that awful. "Sure thing. Would you like your receipt?" she asks, ringing him up. 

"No thanks.” Sam or Dean finding the receipt would be a complete disaster. Kevin can’t afford to be that sloppy. "Have a nice day."

He finds himself a padded armchair in the corner of the shop so he can watch the door and then tilts his head back, listening to the music. Another alternative rock station, which he can totally live with. There’s only so much classical or mullet rock a person can take. 

Kevin takes in the other people here: a middle-aged couple on their laptops playing footsie under their table, a dark-skinned man with a copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ , and a red-haired teenager listening to her iPod. Then, of course, there are the two people making coffee, the young woman and the slightly older man with the tattoos and gages. 

Kevin tells himself not to stare at them, even though it's weird to see people who aren't Crowley or Winchesters. The coffee is pretty good, way better than the stuff they have in the bunker. Maybe next time he should buy a bag of coffee. Except, he’d have to find a way to explain it, so probably not. He nurses his drink, because once he finishes, he's going to have to find an excuse to stay. The door chimes as a woman dressed in leggings, high leather boots, and a long T-shirt comes in. He watches her as she orders a Frappe in a low voice. After she pays, she turns and their eyes meet momentarily before she turns her attention to her phone while she waits. Kevin sips at his coffee, looking away. 

He tenses when he hears footsteps beside him, looks up to the see the woman with her drink in hand. "Mind if I sit?" she asks, gesturing to the other armchair. 

Kevin shrugs. "No, not at all. Go ahead."

She sits and he wishes he had thought to bring a book, because not having anything to do besides people-watch in a half-empty Starbucks in Kansas is probably not the most inconspicuous thing ever. Kevin takes a swig of his coffee, tries to ignore the woman playing with her phone again. It's such a simple, normal thing, he almost laughs. His year spent on the run had a lot of coffee shops like this in it so he could get internet. He should have brought his computer, fallen into his old routine. "You passing through?" she asks him, without looking up from her phone. 

Her voice is deeper than most women he's met, but it sounds nice, too. Low and smooth, and he could stand to listen to her talk for a while. The thought makes the back of his neck flare with heat, but he allows himself to smile at her. "Yeah. Was tired of driving, so I figured I'd get some caffeine in me and enjoy the atmosphere."

She snorts at that, but doesn't comment on how ridiculous he sounds. It occurs to him then how polished she looks. Obviously, judging from her meticulously applied makeup and perfectly styled hair, she puts a lot of time into her appearance. He'd guess that she's some sort of professional, though a professional in what, he couldn't say. At any rate, she still isn't looking at him, but somehow, he can't find it in himself to be bothered by that. 

"You look like you could use a nap, more than anything. You sure you're safe to drive? There's a hotel a few blocks down that's inexpensive," she tells him. 

Kevin smiles again. "I'm good. Thanks though."

She makes a soft noise of assent as she thumbs at her phone, public service completed. Though, she does wave at him as he leaves. Kevin grins. He feels—better, calmer than he did earlier, the memory of Channing not so cutting. Even his headache eases, though probably that's the caffeine. Whatever the source, Kevin isn't going to complain. 

As he drives back, he takes the least direct route possible, circling, ensuring no one follows him back to the bunker. He just hopes it's enough.

* * *

It becomes something of an addiction after that, to add to his growing collection. 

No matter how much temptation gnaws at him, Kevin rarely goes into town. When he does, however, he has two initial conditions that must be met: first, he has to be well enough to drive; second, the Winchesters have to be hunting. The second is fairly obvious. 

After that, Kevin has to ensure the car has enough gas—because calling the Winchesters to explain what happened would sort of be a problem. Each time he drives to town, he parks in a different place out of easy-sight and walks the rest of the way. Kevin leaves the key to the bunker buried beneath the car, just in case something happens to him. And, of course, he brings as much holy water as he can carry inconspicuously. 

Most times, Kevin sits in a corner with a book or his laptop, and no one disturbs him, which suits him fine. It’s nice to listen to the music or to other people talk. Just to know there are other people he _could_ talk to if he felt the urge is a relief. However, there are times when someone will strike up a conversation with him. 

Once, a couple of teenagers—a boy and a girl—see him reading a copy of _The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian_ he had conned Sam into getting him, and they ask him questions about it. “We’re reading it for a book report thing at school,” the boy tells Kevin, grin sheepish, “It’s not required or anything.”

They discuss themes, characters, setting, and the portrayal of Native Americans. Both the boy and girl look at him a little awkwardly at his assessment of how minorities are treated in America, which isn’t surprising. Kevin offers a slight smile to dull the edge of his words. It’s been a long time since he had the luxury of thinking about rights and social justice, even though it had been something he had cared so much about before. Well, he still cares. But he also has basic survival and translating to worry about. “You may want to talk about the division within Native American communities. Maybe something about how the majority culture affects the minority culture?” he asks, fiddling with the edge of the page. 

“So uh. Are you in college?” The girl changes the topic so quickly, Kevin can’t help but think of Dean. 

“No. I…” He frowns, looks down into his coffee even as he feels heat rush to his cheeks. “No. I’m not.”

They look at him awkward for a second, before the boy clears his throat. “Thanks for the help, seriously. How about we treat you to another coffee? Maybe you can talk to us about _Othello?_ We’re reading that for class and… you seem like you know your stuff.”

Kevin grins—and he does, he does know about _Othello_ , and he reads passages and remembers conversations with Channing, Scott, and Mr. Rockne about the play.

The boy and the girl thank him for his time when they leave and his chest feels full to bursting. 

* * *

Another time, Kevin spends a whole hour arguing politics with an older gentleman. He half expects it to devolve into a vitriolic yelling match, but it doesn’t. The man orders Kevin a scone afterwards. “Keep your spunk, kid,” he tells him winking. 

* * *

Two months after Kevin starts going—the fourth time he’s snuck out of the bunker while the Winchesters are out to play—he barely notices when the woman saunters into the shop. Nose buried in the _Phantom Tollbooth,_ he only glances up when she asks, “Would you mind if I sit here?” and points to the chair beside his. 

The Starbucks is full that day, at least a dozen people filling the shop, all chattering and laughing, and Kevin just smiles at the lady. “Sure, no problem,” he says, before turning back to his book. 

After a moment, she clears her throat. He turns to her, takes in the curly red-hair cascading down her shoulders, the skin-tight jeans, the leather jacket and tall boots, the deep red lipstick contrasting with her pearl earrings. Her teeth gleam white as she smiles at him. He clutches his book tighter, white-knuckled. Something about her grin makes him want to leave—he looks into her blue eyes and bites his lip. She lifts her hand, nails colored the same shade as her lips, and then presses her fingertips hard into his nape. Kevin opens his mouth; she shakes her head. “I’m Abaddon,” she says, lacquered-red nails digging in, “And we’re going to be the _best_ of friends, little prophet.”

* * *

 

In spring his sophomore year, Channing convinces him to paint his nails. 

“It’ll look great while you’re practicing,” she says, and he can hear the smile in her voice, “Not to mention your mom has nail polish remover, so you won’t have to wear it to school.”

“I still don’t see why this is a good idea,” he tells her, not lifting his gaze from his sheet music. 

Channing places her hand over where he’s trying to read, fingernails shiny pumpkin orange. He meets her gaze, and she smiles bright at him, mischief a glint in her eyes. “Because it’s an aesthetic thing. It isn’t for you; it’s for me. Humor me, Kevin.” 

“I’m not gay,” he says, but he’s already lost and they both know it.

“And now you’re reinforcing negative stereotypes,” she tells him primly, “Kevin, you’re better than that. Now come on, you can’t seriously think wearing a little nail polish for your girlfriend will forever damage your masculinity.”

Kevin sighs. Then, he holds his hands out to her. 

Channing picks out a vibrant purple, like the color he imagines dinosaurs should have been. She lays paper towels under his fingers, then paints his nails, slow and sure. Honestly, it smells awful, like some sort of lethal chemical concoction in a lab, but the process itself isn’t so bad. Her hands don’t shake at all. 

Not a drop of polish goes anywhere she doesn’t want it. 

“Don’t do anything until they dry,” she commands, and he does exactly what she tells him. 

While they wait, she procures a bottle of lavender-scented lotion from her bag, then rubs it into her hands and forearms. Kevin relaxes with the smell—Channing knows that lavender is his favorite—and looks back at his music, while she bounces ideas for her paper on _Othello_ off him. 

When it finally dries, she squeezes more lotion into her palms and massages it into his hands and forearms, pressing firm but not too hard. Kevin can _feel_ the ache of his fingers and wrists fading under attention, tension melting off like snow melts in spring. His eyes flutter shut and he says, “If I—I can convince you to do that more often, I’ll let you paint my nails all the time.”

Her thumbs dig into the flats of his palm, her skin lotion-warm and he groans loud, tilting back his head. Channing laughs and presses a kiss into the corner of his mouth. 

“I’ll hold you to that,” she tells him, “Now play me a song.” 

So he does, an easy familiar tune, so he can watch her watching him—her rapt attention, eyes drawn to the motion of his fingers on the strings, and she smiles at him, like she’s never seen anything better, which is crazy, but Kevin can’t help the way the thought warms him.

(Later, years later, this is how he wants to remember her.) 

* * *

Kevin stares dumbly at Abaddon, before his brain engages and he reaches down, to pull the squirt gun out of his jacket. “Ah, ah,” she murmurs, voice low and heady like the smoke of her soul, “I’ve got ten demons with me here, my darling. One wrong move and they’ll kill everyone in this building. That what you need? To watch them all die bloody, sweetheart? I know I do.”

“What do you want?” he asks, throat dry. 

It might be smart to let the demons kill everyone. Sam and Dean, at least, would know what happened. But Kevin can’t. He swallows, scrunches his eyes shut. “For you and I to spend some quality together. How about you come back to my place, baby?” she purrs, breath brimstone-hot on the shell of his ear. 

He opens his eyes, sees all the people here, drinking their coffee. Maybe he shouldn’t believe that she has reinforcements with her, maybe he should take the risk—but he can’t. This was his mistake and he has to be the one to pay for it. 

“Okay.” 

Abaddon laces her fingers with his, and Kevin tries to recoil from her touch, but his bones grind together as she squeezes tighter. She leads him out. No one notices; no one cares. Kevin sucks in a breath, wants to scream, wants to have never left the bunker, wants Sam and Dean to miraculously find him, but nobody comes. Abaddon shoves him into the backseat of a nondescript Honda. “Left my other ride at home.” She slams the door shut. 

Two other demons get into the car—well, Kevin assumes they’re demons, because one of them rips off Kevin’s jacket, pulling out the water gun. They search his pants, take the knife from his ankle sheath, take his phone and chuck it out the window. Neither think to search his shoes. Abaddon drives them to wherever her “place” is and Kevin asks, “So, how did you find me?”

“Winchesters have this thing about Kansas, considering it’s where they buried mummy dearest. I’ve had demons staking it out, looking for them, and—lo and behold—they saw you and Sam at a Starbucks. Imagine my luck when I heard my favorite little prophet was a regular. I’ve been wanting to get to know you better for some time, baby. Now I’ve got the chance.” Her gaze meets his in the rearview mirror. “You’re crafty, I’ll give you that. We’ve tried following you back to wherever you’ve holed up… Well, since that hasn’t worked, we’re trying this instead, baby.”

Kevin focuses so much on what she’s saying that he doesn’t notice the syringe until it’s jabbed into his neck. He tries to shove the demon away, but the man laughs. “Can’t have you figurin’ out where we’re going,” he says, pats Kevin’s cheek almost tenderly, even as Kevin’s eyes droop.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: withdrawal, unwanted touching/kissing, forced blood drinking, psychological and physical torture, canon-typical levels of violence and gore, allusions to drug abuse/dependence and alcohol abuse by a minor.

Kevin comes to on a bed that isn’t his, in a room he doesn’t recognize. Jerking upright, his breath comes in short pants as he takes in his new surroundings. The room is spartan and bland, wood-paneled with a stained beige carpet. Mostly, the stains seem to be food or animal related, not blood. Kevin swallows anyway. The lone window is barred with steel and boarded up outside. He clambers to his feet and checks the two doors. One is locked from the outside. The other leads to a tiny bathroom. Lime-stained and old, it at least has a bathtub, even if it looks like it hasn’t seen cleaner in years. 

He heads back into the bedroom and opens the closet door. Nobody has cleaned it out. A ragged old sheet lays draped over a mess of things that must have belonged to the former occupants. Kevin digs through the mess. 

If God loves him at all, there will be a bobby pin or something equally useful. Instead, he finds styrofoam packing peanuts, a set of rusted fireplace tools, and a bald baby doll. He drapes the sheet over everything again, then shuts the door. At least he has a place to hide things. 

Kevin rubs at his head, feeling like someone stuffed cotton balls into his skull till they jammed his ears up too. Other than that, he seems uninjured and they even missed both rosaries in his shoes. Good. 

Just like Crowley, they’re underestimating him. It’s a start at least.

Near the locked door is a plate with a bologna sandwich and some potato chips. A glass of water sits beside it. Kevin makes no move toward them, remembers too vividly Dick Roman trying to kill the skinny people. 

The itch builds beneath his skin, hot, and he paces, paces, because _holy shit_. He’s exactly where he promised himself he wouldn’t be again. He’s exactly where Sam and Dean said they’d keep him from going. Not that this is their fault. This is all on Kevin. Which means—means that he needs a plan. This time, there is no Metatron or Castiel to save his ass. His hands shake and the thick fog of his brain swells, till he collapses face first on the bed. 

Despite everything, Kevin somehow sleeps. 

* * *

His mother stares unseeing as he kneels before her.  Mouth slack, her breath at least rises and falls even. Kevin’s heart catches in his throat. “Mom? Come on. Mom, this isn’t—“ he wants to tell her that _it isn’t funny_ , like he’s five again, but this isn’t the sort of joke she would make. Her jokes always involved Channing and surprises, like gardening instead of biology homework. 

“Mom?” He yanks her into his arms, clutching at her tightly, like he can fill the void of her with affection. She is tiny and breakable, not the giant of his memories. 

She simply puffs moist and hot air against his neck, so he rocks her, tears wetting her hair heavy. When she finally— _finally_ —responds, her first word in days is, “Why?” voice cracking and broken, dragged across the sharp points of terror and helplessness he has brought her. 

Kevin wishes he had an answer. Something to tell her that isn’t _I don’t know_ or _I’m sorry_ or _I was chosen by God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry_. 

(He wonders if this is what she felt like all those times he asked why he didn’t have a dad.)

* * *

He wakes when the door creaks open. The same demon that drugged him slips in; his vessel is rakishly handsome in that boring Hollywood sort of way, but Kevin finds himself examining the packed on muscles and the precision he takes in his motions. This isn’t a random civilian.

“What is this?” Kevin demands, the room fuzzy at the edges, tongue molasses-heavy, “Where are we?”

The demon says nothing. Instead, he replaces the untouched plate of food with a bowl of what appears to be oatmeal. Kevin heaves himself to his feet, swaying as the room twists and his stomach rolls. “What, aren’t going to torture me? Find out what’s on the tablet? Hey!” The door shuts without the demon saying a damn word. 

Kevin stares at the door, hands shaking with the pressing silence. His stomach flips. So this is how Abaddon is going to play. Fine. Kevin’s played this game for nearly two years now. 

He can keep playing. 

* * *

Except Abaddon has a different game in mind. 

Time passes slow, though he has no idea how much time actually crawls by before the Queen herself deigns make an appearance. By then, he has surrendered and begun eating the offered food. It doesn’t make him any less shaky or sleepy—he wonders what they’re drugging him with. Kevin alternates between pacing, shivering under the blankets, and sleeping. 

The door bursts open with a bang that jolts him awake. “Why hello, little Prophet. Miss me?” Abaddon leans larger than life in the doorway, teeth gleaming white against the blood-red of her lips. “I thought we’d have a heart-to-heart, you and I.” Her fingers flex, like she wants to tear out his too-fast beating hair with her red red nails in some twisted Hell Knight form of heart-to-hearts. 

Kevin shivers, looking up at her. His head still feels thick. She closes the door with a twitch of her pinky finger. “Screw you.”

“Oh, baby. Talk dirty to me all day,” Abaddon purrs as she closes the distance between them in a few steps.

Sulphur mixes with the scent of her vanilla perfume. He finds himself staring at the pearl necklace around her throat, even as his shaking intensifies. Her fingers comb through his mussed hair, smoothing the wayward strands into place. Crowley had preferred Kevin to be at his best—to be sleek and polished and blah blah, but that had been Crowley’s choice, not Kevin’s. Personally, he feels no real desire to look presentable for his captors. Abaddon’s touch is warm and soothing, even as he expects to dig her nails into his flesh and _tear_. 

“So, baby. Hunter’s helper or something a little more exotic?” Her breath ghosts his forehead. 

Kevin blinks at her and leans back, till his back hits the wall. His hands shake as he reaches up to push her away. Abaddon smirks down at him as she cards her fingers through his hair. “Tell me what it is that’s got you so jittery. Maybe I’ll get it for you.” 

_Withdrawal_. The word comes to him as he shakes his head. “Screw you,” he says again, with less force this time. 

His hands shake harder. Goddammit, he was so _stupid._ He should have listened to Sam. His teeth clench. Abaddon cups his face. “You know, there used to be an order to things before the apocalypse that wasn’t. See, little Prophet, you’re not the first prophet I’ve had the _pleasure_ of meeting.” She bends further, till her painted mouth nearly touches his chapped one. “Back then, if I had so much lifted a finger against your pretty little head, I would have been smoked off the map. God used to protect his prophets with his archangels. So I never had the opportunity know any of them. You’re special, sweetie. You’re the first prophet to know the darkness.”

Her eyes flood black as he stares into them, and he breathes in her brimstone. But he says nothing.

Like he’s a particularly contrite pet, she stokes his cheek. When he tries to shy away, he finds there’s nowhere to go. His back is already pressed into the wall, and Abaddon laughs, coarse and wild. She forces his head back, throat exposed to her gleaming white teeth. Kevin shudders as she murmurs against his neck, “Not feeling talkative?” Abaddon hums against his skin. “Play nice, prophet, and I’ll play nicer.” 

Her red curls fall into his face (and God, he tries not to think of Channing leaning down to press her lips to his, hair tickling his face as it falls over them like a curtain, keeping out the world). Kevin inhales the scent of her tainted perfume, then grits out, “Good luck with that.”

“You’re going to beg to tell me what’s on the demon tablet, Kevin, and then you’re going to tell me where the Winchesters are keeping Crowley.”

He keeps his mouth shut as she pets and cajoles him, voice sweet like corn syrup. After a time, she sighs her disappointment into his skin, smoothes his hair one last time, and then leaves him there. 

Kevin can appreciate why Crowley wants someone to talk to him. He feels her absence the second she is gone. 

* * *

When Kevin is fourteen, his mother misses Christmas. Not that they are religious, but they celebrate most of the secular holidays. Why not?   

Of course her missing Christmas is an accident: she gets snowed-in on a work trip and can’t get back in time. She calls one of the neighbors to take Kevin grocery shopping, but he spends Christmas alone in the house that year. Kevin sets out a frying pan just in case, and he gorges himself almost sick on hummus and carrots. Every creak of the house sets his heart to pounding. He watches re-runs of Will & Grace, like he can blot out the silence with the insipid laughter tracks. 

Three days after the holiday, she returns home with a new cello in her backseat. “Merry Christmas, Kevin,” she tells him voice sharp, and he hears it for the apology it is. 

Kevin hugs her. “Merry Christmas, Mom.”

In a way, he’s used to being alone. The difference becomes that, back then, he always knew his mom was coming back. 

 

Now, he knows she never will. 

* * *

Apart from Abaddon’s lackey bringing him food and hygiene supplies, they leave him alone. Though no light comes through the barred window, he guesses nobody talks to him for days. 

Kevin spends most his time sleeping. It isn’t like there’s much else to do, apart from his riveting routine of pacing and talking to himself. Exhaustion drags at him heavily in addition to boredom, as if no amount of sleep can make up for the strain he’s put his body under the last two years. Despite his body needing the rest, the nightmares are constant companions.

For once, they’re better than being awake. 

Not including the closet or bathroom, the room is ten paces across and seven wide. Occasionally, he showers to feel human and to alleviate the boredom. The demons are thoughtful enough to leave him a cheap bar of soap so he smells like he imagines the Winchesters feel most days. But, the demons don’t bring him new clothes, which sucks, but honestly he thinks his hygiene was worse in the houseboat. They do give him a razor, though, because priorities.

When he focuses on finding an escape, he blanks after he hides both his rosaries. (One of which he hides in the tank of the toilet so he can easily make holy water, and the other he hides under the musty sheet in the closet.) Apart from the rosaries, Kevin has nothing useful to his name. Worse, he has no idea what his situation is outside of this room. He doesn’t know how many demons are out there, where Abaddon is, or even where in the world he even is. Trying to break out of captivity with a half-cocked plan might work for the Winchesters, but Kevin does better running and hiding than anything else. He needs to not be caught. He needs a plan. 

Kevin barely knows where to start. Maybe if his mind didn’t seem to be swimming through tar to locate even the simple ideas like how to turn on the shower, maybe he could get somewhere. 

Or, hell, maybe he could get somewhere if his skull would stop pounding.

 He’d always figured that abandoning the tablet and sleepingmore than two hours a night would somehow be the death blow to his headaches, but if anything, they’re worse now. His hands shiver and shake, so hard he drops the soap three times per shower, on average. (His median score is 2. What can he say? He has a lot of time on his hands.) 

Sometimes, the migraines hit so hard he _can’t sleep_ , even as his eyes droop and he shivers with either cold or pain. After awhile, they start to feel the same.

 Kevin stares at the ceiling for hours, blue and orange swirls of color dancing across his vision, stabbing pains behind his eyes. The part of him that’s given up on self-indulgence murmurs about withdrawal from the alcohol and the medication. 

But mostly, he tries to ignore it and figure out an escape plan. 

 

Failing that, Kevin sleeps. 

* * *

“Honey, I’m home!” She flings the door open with her call.

Kevin gasps awake, unsure if the staccato pound of his heart is from the dream about Channing’s neck snapping or Abaddon. He blinks at her, vision blurred at the edges. Shapely hip pressed against the doorjamb, she folds her arms and taps her fingers against them, the red of her nails appearing as blood against her milky skin. At the sight of his watery eyes, Abaddon tuts, pink tongue curling over her perfect teeth. “I’m not telling you anything,” he rasps, wiping at his eyes, “So you can go to Hell.”

“No need to cry, baby. I told you. Tell me what you want, I’ll get it for you. If you’re good for me.” 

She saunters to him, then crawls onto his bed, knees bracketing his. Heat comes off her, stinking of sulphur and the room spins. Her hands shoot out, and then she laces her fingers with his shaking ones. The last person to hold his hand was his mother. “I want you to die bloody,” he snaps. 

Abaddon laughs with her head thrown back. “Oh, little prophet,” she says once she’s calmed, one hand trailing up to caress his face, the other clasping his hand so tight he can feel the bones grind, “You’re cute, I’ll give you that.”

Her thumb rubs too hard over his cheekbone, like when his mom used to scrub dirt off his face when he was kid. Kevin sucks in a breath, trying to forget his mom’s face because he _can’t_. He can’t look at Abaddon and keep seeing his mother. God, what is wrong with him? At his exhalation, Abaddon smirks as if she is getting somewhere and maybe she is. “Why are you protecting Crowley?” she leans forward, till they’re eye to eye, mouths nearly touching, her hand on his trapping him like a butterfly pinned for study, “He was the one who ruined your life.”

Kevin arches an eyebrow, twisting his own mouth into a smirk, like his hand isn’t shaking in her too-hot grip, like his stomach doesn’t roll every time she breathes into his face. The hand at his cheek moves to dig nails sharply into his nape. “I can make your life Hell. Trust that, if nothing else, prophet. I know what Hell is like. I can recreate it just for you. Give me what I want, and I’ll let you go. Simple, isn’t it?”

“If I tell you, you’re going to kill me,” he tells her flatly. “Try again.”

“We’ll even kiss on it if it makes you feel better.” Her grins returns. 

Kevin snorts. “Yeah, I don’t think so. You’re not really my type.” 

Her eyes shift to pitch, and her teeth gleam as she bares them in a snarl. “You’re trying my patience,” voice steely, “Tell me something from the tablet then. I know you remember most of it. You’re smart, you wouldn’t be alive if you weren’t.”

When he clamps his mouth shut, her touch becomes harsher. Her full mouth curls around his defiance as she examines him. 

Abaddon softens her touch. Like he’s a child in need of comfort, she strokes him, her black eyes slitted in amusement. His head throbs. He averts his gaze, staring up at the ceiling he’s grown so intimately familiar with. Her thumb rubs circles over his temple, digging in just this side of pain; he bites back a groan but turns to her. “You’re real tense, sweetheart. Maybe we can do something about that.”

He looks away from her again. With a growl low in her throat, she backhands him so hard he slams flat on his back against the bed. His breath escapes in short sharp pants as he feels the swelling start, hot and tender. “Feel better?” he gasps, when he finds his voice.

“I know a way I could feel better. Maybe next time, if you don’t behave.” Abaddon stalks out of the room, all coiled power and intent, the door locking behind her.  

* * *

Kevin wishes he could say that Abaddon doesn’t terrify him. While he knows he won’t break, there are no other certainties about his situation, so it’s not much in the way of consolation. 

* * *

She lets him stew. The time he doesn’t spend sleeping, he either showers so that he doesn’t feel so damn cold (even though it doesn’t much stop the constant shivering) or pacing. Kevin talks to himself constantly just to hear something. There aren’t even any other noises from the rest of the house, like it’s soundproofed to keep him completely isolated. He flinches when the door bangs open.

Abaddon stands larger than life in the doorway, arms folded. “Hello, Kevin.”

He curls his fingers into fists, nails biting crescents into his palms as she stalks toward him. “I was a little rough with you last time,” she hums, the cat who got the canary, “Let’s try being civil, shall we?”

When she reaches for him, he bats her hand away; Abaddon smirks, easily brushing him aside to stroke his hair. “Don’t be like that, baby.”

Easy for her to say. She’s not the one being bad-touched by a demon after days without any physical contact. Kevin clenches his jaw, breathing heavily out his nose. “You’re not original. This is probably one of the oldest tricks in the book. And probably more effective against people who haven’t been on the run for as long as I have,” he snaps at her when she continues to pet him.

“Humans are easy, Kevin. They all need the same things. Just a matter of how quick they break.” She smiles at him, reassuring as a shark. 

(Okay, so he really liked going to the aquarium before he became a prophet. Sue him. If he gets out of this alive, he’s making Sam and Dean take him. Because screw them.)

Abaddon examines his face, before she shrugs. “Not talking again? Honey, you’re trying my patience.”

“Eat me.”

“Keep it up and I might, lover,” she promises as she leans further into his space, lips barely brushing his, “If you don’t give me what I want, I’m going to enlist you. Think the Winchesters would stop your killing spree? Think they’d be able to bring themselves to end you with that knife of theirs? I’m looking forward to finding out, baby.”

Abaddon leaves to let that settle in. 

As the door shuts, he reminds himself that, logically, he shouldn’t believe her. She needs what he knows. And, obviously, having him possessed won’t get it for her, or Crowley would have tried that. But… Abaddon doesn’t have the same finesse as Crowley. If she gets angry enough, he has no idea what she will do. He buries his face in the pillow. His body shakes hard, but he doesn’t pull up the covers. 

* * *

Every few days, Kevin makes holy water in the toilet tank. More than anything, it makes him _feel_ like he has some modicum of control. He has a cup to drink tap water from that he fills with holy water. 

Given the direction Kevin’s life tends to go, however, the fact is that he eventually gets caught. Kevin reaches “ _Per Dominum, amen”_ when the bathroom door flings open and by then, the demon who brings his food has spotted the rosary. His eyes flare black, and Kevin’s back collides with the wall, air whooshing out his lungs. The demon pulls a walkie-talkie from his hip. “My lady,” he drawls into it, “Somebody had a secret and couldn’t keep it.”

The line crackles, then, “I’ll be right there.”

Kevin struggles against the invisible force pinning him to the wall as the pressure against his chest increases till his ribs creak and drool dribbles out the corners of Kevin’s lips as he sucks in sharp gasps of air. One hand lifted to keep Kevin immobile, the demon’s other hand carefully dips into the tank. He hisses as his stolen skin steams and sizzles, and then he twists his head to examine Kevin, eyes gone tar black. “She’s not going to be pleased.”

Except when Abaddon stalks in like a panther, she smiles wider than ever. Her perfect red curls tumble over her shoulders with momentum of her smooth gait. She spots the rosary and her smile widens, before she reaches in and scoops it out. Her laughter sounds bright and awful like lightning even while her stolen skin smokes. The string hangs off her long fingers, and she wriggles them. The rosary gleams wetly in the crappy florescent light, the beads clacking together louder than everything in the room except Kevin’s desperate breathing. 

She turns to him, lifting her hand to show off his safety net. Her red brows raise as she examines him. “This is going to hurt you more than it’s going to hurt me, baby. I’ve tried being nice, but you just won’t listen, will you?” She steps into his space, till the cool water smears from the beads onto his chapped lips. “You really are trying to be a Man of Letters, aren’t you? Keep it up and I’ll give you a replay of how their last days panned out.”

Abaddon pulls a silver Zippo lighter from inside her leather jacket, and Kevin can’t help but think of Dean. He has a lighter like that one he carries in his coat. A wounded noise tears from Kevin’s throat as he struggles against the hold they have on him. 

When Abaddon shoots the other demon a look, he yanks Kevin in like a yo-yo and then catches him in a bruising grip. One arm wraps around his stomach, the other lifts his forearm for Abaddon’s inspection—and when Kevin kicks the demon, all he gets for his trouble is their laughter. Abaddon yanks his sleeve up, examining the black mark that was supposed to keep him safe. 

To be fair, it didn’t do much for his mom, either. 

Abaddon flicks open her Zippo, the clean scent of fire filling his nose, and Kevin can’t seem to get enough air. “No,” he gasps out, even as he fixates on the bright flame. 

“Deep breaths, baby,” she coos, and then—

She brings the lighter to his skin. Searing pain—hot and bright over his flesh, until the fire doesn’t smell clean anymore. It smells like cooked meat. That’s him. It smells like him. Kevin gags on it, on his choked screams, on his breath, on his spit, on the bile that curls up into his throat. Abaddon’s face is too close to his, close enough that if he could feel anything apart from the flames burning, he could feel her moist breath on his face. His eyes scrunch shut as he screams. Almost like a demented game of peek-a-boo: if he can’t see her, she can’t see him. But that’s never worked for him before and it doesn’t now. 

Her other hand curls into his sweat-plastered hair. Abaddon shushes him as she strokes him. “Shhhh, it’s okay, honey. Almost done.”

It isn’t okay. It won’t ever be okay. Tears spill over his cheeks, hot against the cool of his skin. Abaddon is going to find a demon to ride in his skin, is going to use his body to hurt anybody he has left to care about, and a whole bunch of people besides. 

All because he was lonely and wanted a coffee. 

She pulls the lighter away from his skin and, despite himself, he opens his eyes to look. What used to be unblemished skin is now brown and raised, the anti-possession tattoo unrecognizable. It can’t save him from anything now. That one certainty etched into his skin, gone. “Drop him,” Abaddon orders, and Kevin collapses to his knees when the other demon complies. 

Balanced on his good hand and knees, Kevin cradles his burnt arm to his chest. He does throw up then. Everything he’s ever eaten comes up, all mixed up with his snot and tears, and he can’t fucking breathe, but even the pain in his lungs as he struggles for oxygen isn’t much to the pain of his forearm still burning even though she’s tucked her lighter away. 

Distantly, he thinks he feels cold, teeth chattering, and the world spins and spins, till he finally gives it up. He doesn’t really have it in him to fall to the side, so he lands in the wet spot face first. 

 

Lackey-demon cleans him. He fills the sink with warm sudsy water and then dunks Kevin’s head in, pulls him up to let him breathe, then dunks him under again. The water he rinses Kevin with is cold. Kevin finds himself shivering. 

Kevin flinches away when the demon reaches for his injured arm, but the lackey only huffs as treats the burn with some antiseptic. Then, the demon bandages Kevin’s arms. Both the antiseptic and the roll of bandaging are left on the counter beside his toothpaste.

They give him new clothes, too, which is pretty considerate, all things considered. On the bed, he curls around his arm and eventually sleeps, the reek of burnt flesh still strong in his nose. 

* * *

It doesn’t get to him. 

 

It really doesn’t get to him. 

Kevin doesn’t spend hours staring at the bandage and he certainly doesn’t scratch at it. He never imagines himself with eyes gone burnt-charcoal black. Kevin doesn’t even _think_ about it. Kevin keeps it together because being possessed isn’t his idea of a nightmare. Of course not. 

(Except that it is.)

The truth is that Kevin stays awake after Abaddon burns away his last defense. 

Reality is Kevin curled in the lime-stained tub for so long his legs cramp, wearing nothing but his boxers and breathing heavy. Reality is that the demon could be inside him now, and he wouldn’t know. Not if the demon kept him asleep in his own body, like the demon inside Channing had done. (He remembers, still, that momentary joy on her face when she’d seen him, before it had melted to confusion upon learning she was possessed.)

Kevin presses his palms into his eyes, as if he can scoop out that cursed black smoke. 

The worst part is that he could find out whether there is a demon inside him by making more holy water. _If_ he was willing to risk his last rosary. Which he isn’t. Because, as of right now, that’s all he’s got of an escape route. 

Kevin stops eating when he realizes everything tastes like ash. And he has no idea if it _really_ tastes like ash or if he’s imagining it. That, more than anything, is what has his stomach rolling. (He has been completely and totally delusional before, when Crowley chopped off Kevin’s limbs, when Crowley stole him from the houseboat to the replica, when Kevin buried the tablet. Now Kevin has a system. He retraces his actions, following the cause-and-effect of everything he’s done. But now, if he blacks outs while a demon takes his meatsuit for a joyride, he has no _idea_ what is real and what isn’t. It’s not like has any way to tell whether or not he’s losing time.) 

He has no way of knowing whether his body is his own. Worse, he has no idea what Abaddon can make him do. Kevin remembers from the Edlund books that both John Winchester and Bobby Singer threw off possessions for people they loved; he knows that Sam snatched control of his body from _Lucifer himself_ , but Kevin—Kevin thinks maybe _maybe_ if he was lucky, he could yank the reins back if they tried to make him kill Channing or his mother. But chances are good that Kevin doesn’t have the mettle to throw off a demon. Underneath it all, he’s just a kid from Michigan. 

If he is possessed, Sam and Dean will feel terrible about it, but they’ll have to kill Kevin. And that is what destiny has granted him, isn’t it? The chance to be one more bloodstain in the Winchesters’ path. 

Kevin pulls himself out of the tub and drags himself to his bed. He rolls, so that his face is pressed so hard into the pillow he can barely breathe. 

* * *

By time Abaddon visits again, he’s a mess. Kevin eventually had to eat even though it barely stayed down, and he doesn’t remember the last time he had a full night’s sleep. She grins at him widely, and he meets her gaze. “Still mad about your tattoo, honey?” 

Abaddon waits for his answer, then sighs when she realizes she’s not getting one. Her fingers skim over his biceps up to his shoulders. “I’m a busy woman,” she tells him, voice soft, “I don’t have the time to waste on you today, baby.”

She’s leaving. That’s a relief. That’s totally a relief. That is such a relief. But his pulse picks up, faster than it had when she’d banged the door open. Shit. He is Kevin Tran. He’s outplayed the King of Hell before, this shouldn’t _get_ to him. But his gaze darts down to the clean bandage wrapped around his forearm, and then he looks up at her again. Abaddon smirks and then—

Then he tastes sulphur. 

So this is possession, this is the taste of her soul entering his mouth to take residence inside him. Abaddon’s lips move against his and—no, she’s _kissing him_ , not possessing him. Her hands trail up to tangle in his hair. Kevin jerks against the tug of her fingers, eyes watering at the sharp bloom of pain at his scalp. He can feel her smirk against his mouth before she bites his lower lip so hard it splits under the onslaught. Automatically his mouth opens, and her tongue darts in, searing hot and wet. Abaddon traces along the palette of his mouth with the tip of her tongue. Sulphur and fire flood his mouth, or at least what he imagines fire would taste like now that he knows it so well. Kevin slams his jaw shut. 

This time, the blood is hers. 

It floods his mouth, heady and dark, like those sips of scotch whisky Dean had let him have when he’d found that barrel of the stuff stashed in the bunker. Abaddon’s tongue heals in his mouth, but she moves a hand to pinch his nostrils shut, cutting off his air supply. She keeps him there till he swallows her blood down. It burns all the way down his throat. 

When she pulls away, he gasps for air even as his vision blurs at the edges. The hand at his nose moves to trace his jaw, her skin catching against the days worth of stubble he’s grown. “It’ll be so much better when I’m riding your ass.”

Abbadon leaves. Abaddon leaves, and his mouth tastes like her. But his headache fades too, even as his stomach churns sick and hot, and cold sweat bursts over his skin. For the first time in a long time, the pain fades. He bites at his split lip, until the iron-tang of his blood mixes with the sulphur-taint of hers. His hands stop shaking. Kevin swipes his tongue over his mouth again, before realizing—he staggers into the bathroom, brushing and brushing his teeth, but her ash remains, her blood heavy in his belly, despite only getting a mouthful. Somehow, he feels good—stronger than he has been. 

Despite the sudden flush of power, he still has no plan. He has nothing to do with the strength. So he brushes his teeth again. 

* * *

Apart from Abaddon, the only person he’s ever kissed is Channing—

Kevin and Channing date two months before they kiss. Secretly, Kevin thinks that Channing planned it well in advance, but Kevin had no idea it was coming. He may have had a girlfriend, but he was still pretty clueless at age fifteen. They’re at his house, watching The Powerpuff Girls, because they’re awesome, when Channing looks at him. “Hey, Kevin?” she asks, tilting her head to the side, “You like dating, right?”

“Yeah…” He looks at her, without any idea why she’s asking. 

Channing bites her lip, then nods. “Yeah, me too.” 

She leans forward and kisses him. Her lips soft against his, Kevin blinks in surprise, before he presses back against her, wrapping arms around her. (It’s another few weeks before they move onto open-mouthed kissing. Given that they’re both perfectionists, they want to master this first.)

Channing pulls back first, breathless. And then she laughs, flush high in her cheeks, and Kevin laughs with her. “I definitely like the dating thing,” he tells her, and—well, the Powerpuff Girls are _awesome_ but there are better things to do than watch TV—

Kevin flops back on the bed, bouncing his leg. It still hurts to think about Channing. Not only because it’s hisfault that she died, but also because she was his girlfriend and his best friend and he misses her like crazy. She always knew how to make everything okay, somehow, had always been straight with him. 

In a world where secrets have secrets, he can appreciate that so much more now. 

His palms dig into his eyes. He wants to sleep, but he can’t, almost as if adrenaline has been injected straight into his heart. All he can do is stay awake and taste Abaddon on his tongue and try to think of a way out of here. Nothing reasonable comes to him, so he yells instead, to hear something against the whirling of his mind. He imagines Abaddon outside, laughing and reapplying her lipstick. 

Kevin wonders if her lips stained his. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: physical and psychological torture, non-canonical demon possession, canon-typical levels of violence, unwanted touching, blood drinking, nightmares, and sleep deprivation used as a torture technique.

The funny thing is that he thinks it can’t get worse. Being possessed is his own personal Hell. How could it be worse than Hell?

Let it not be said that Abaddon is completely useless; she has a flair that Crowley should envy to the core of his black heart. 

* * *

When Abaddon flings open the door, she’s not alone. 

Kevin expects another demon, some kind of hellish good-cop-bad-cop thing. Instead, she throws the man down onto his hands and knees, spots of blood flecking the beige carpet. And Kevin recognizes that sinewy form, the strong shoulders, that mussed charcoal hair. The man looks up at him, and he definitely recognizes those blazing blue eyes and his dark five-o-clock shadow, despite the purple-red bruises swelling his cheeks. “Cas?” Kevin breathes out, and the former angel shuts his eyes. 

“Kevin,” he rasps, “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Cas, I’m okay. You know, besides the ‘being held captive by demons’ thing.” Kevin glares at Abaddon, who simply smirks. 

Her lipstick is smudged, her knuckles raw and red. At the very least, Cas gave as good as he got. “I’ll let you and the angel get reacquainted. I need to see a man about a horse.” He watches her leave, can’t help but wonder what could possibly make her think that leaving them alone is a good plan. The only explanation he comes up with is that they really are so pathetic she doesn’t view them as a threat. At the very least, she should probably be worried about Cas, considering he used to be an angel and all.  

Once the lock clicks, Kevin turns his attention back to Cas. “Are _you_ okay? You look like… hell,” he says as he offers his hand to Castiel. 

Cas takes it, and Kevin shoulders as much of Cas’s weight as he can to get Cas to the bed. “They are mostly bruises and some shallows cuts,” Cas tells him, with a shrug that makes him wince, “I will heal. I apologize, Kevin. This is perhaps not the best rescue that I have ever orchestrated. However, it is also not the worst.”

“Where are Sam and Dean?” Kevin asks, pulling out the supply of bandaging and antiseptic ointment they had given him for his burns from the bathroom. 

Silence as Castiel gingerly shrugs off his shirt to reveal mottled bruises in purple and black, and long cuts crisscrossing his torso—and Kevin seriously hopes Cas doesn’t have a broken rib or something. Kevin frowns, then goes to get a new washcloth from the bathroom, wetting it with warm water. He tries not to panic at Cas’s continued silence. When Kevin re-enters the room, Cas’s eyes are blue and wide and earnest. “I don’t know,” he says finally, voice hushed and crackling like a bad radio connection. “I’m sorry.”

Kevin presses the washcloth too-hard into one of Castiel’s cuts. Hissing, Cas shuts his eyes and clenches his fists. But he doesn’t shy away, as though this is his penance. A desire for penance seems angelic to Kevin. He gentles his touch but that cannot change that the washcloth is scratchy and his hands won’t stop shaking. “What do you mean, _you don’t know_?”

“Exactly that. We were not working together when I came to your aid. Dean called to tell me that you were missing, but that Sam and he had it under control. He would not hear of it when I stated that I wished to assist. So I took matters into my own hands.” Cas barely flinches as Kevin swipes the washcloth over another cut, and he watches as Kevin bites his lip. “It seems I have yet again made a mess of things.”

“Join the club.”

Cas tilts his head to the side even as Kevin applies the ointment to his wounds. “How were you found?”

“I uh…” Kevin can’t meet Cas’s gaze. This is all his fault: every abrasion, every bruise, everything that happens to Cas while he’s here. All of this is on Kevin. He wraps a length of bandage around Cas’s chest, trying to stop the bleeding without putting too much pressure on the bruises. From the hiss Cas expels, he doesn’t fully succeed. “I decided to have an adventure outside of the bunker without telling anyone. That’s when Abaddon found me.”

He expects Cas’s anger. Given their previous interactions, it would fall into the pattern. Cas offers Kevin a smile instead, allowing Kevin to patch him up—though Kevin barely knows what he’s doing. Everything he’s learned about first aid he learned from Garth so he could take care of his amputated pinky. 

It occurs to Kevin that Cas probably has less experience than he does. After all, when you’ve got holy healing powers, why bother with Neosporin and a band-aid? 

Once Kevin finishes patching him up, Cas thanks him, then asks, “And you are unharmed?”

“I uh…” Kevin looks up at the ceiling. “She burned off my tattoo. If I don’t give her whatever she wants…”

“We will find a way out of this,” Cas tell him, firm and solid, and Kevin wants to believe. 

All Kevin can do is nod. He still has no viable way to get himself out, not to mention anyone else. And Kevin scrunches his eyes shut because how could he possibly have been so stupid? It was one thing when he was the only one being affected by his choices, but a whole other thing now that someone else has to sink with him. Castiel doesn’t even have the meagre protection being an archangel-less prophet evidently offers. Not to mention he is so newly human.

Kevin wants to tell Cas that he has a way out of this, that Cas won’t burn for Kevin’s farce of freedom. But there is no reassurance to offer. Patching Cas up will have to suffice. 

Cas, however, has has something more concrete to offer. 

He pulls a small silver knife out of a hidden sheathe. “Take this. I cannot… I do not know if it shall be of use, but it is better than nothing.”

The knife gets hidden beneath the sheet in the closet, beside the fireplace tools. Cas gives a smile to go with the knife because it is what he has. What can Kevin do, except smile back? Evidently, the honorary Winchesters are in this thing together. “Thank you,” Kevin says, “For the knife. And for trying to save me.”

Abaddon opens the door not long after, then leans in the doorway. “Come on, angel. I want to spend some quality time with you. We should get to know one another a little better.” Her white teeth gleam in the fluorescent light. “And our little prophet does so need his rest.” Kevin watches as Cas clenches his jaw but does as Abaddon asks. As they leave, she calls back, “Maybe if you’re good for me next time, sweetheart, you’ll see your angel again _real_ soon.”

* * *

Like all brilliant ideas, it comes to him in the shower. 

If it was one thing Dean and Sam had stressed to him, fire pokers were usually made out of iron. Iron was useful against ghosts and demons and some other nasties, too. While not ideal, pokers could make a good weapon in a pinch. 

Not that a little fire poker by itself will be of much use, but he has something else to his name. Kevin has a knife. And, between the two of them, Kevin thinks that—maybe, just maybe—he can get Abaddon out of the picture just long enough for him and Cas to escape. 

* * *

Abaddon plays her same old tune: asks the same questions, stays in his personal space so he can taste her sulphur heavy on his tongue. He wants to say he gets used to it, but he never does. Her hands are soft and warm, her lips wet and red, and he—well, it’s not like he sees anyone else outside of her interrogations. 

And even before he came here Kevin has been fairly isolated for years now—Kevin swallows when he finds himself not pulling away from her hands caressing his cheeks. “Kevin,” she says, voice as soft as someone like her can manage, “Tell me where Crowley is.”

He doesn’t—so her mouth twists and she pulls away. “Maybe you need a visitor,” she muses, “to remind you it’s not just your skin on the line, baby.”

Cas, when he’s brought in, stares at Kevin intently, fever-bright eyes glassy as he smiles. “Hello, Kevin,” he says, as though blood isn’t trickling out the corner of his mouth. 

“Hey,” says Kevin, watching Abaddon lean against the doorway. 

With an unsteady limp, Cas closes the distance between himself and Kevin. The pads of Cas’s fingers catch against the week of stubble Kevin has allowed to grow. His hands on Kevin are eager and soft, his eyes boring into Kevin’s bright and intent, desperate.

Oh, God. She’s doing the same thing to Cas—except, judging by the bruises and lacerations, her caresses are coupled with pain for Cas. So Kevin just shuts his eyes and lets Cas give both of them this. Behind them, Abaddon cackles. For all that Cas is trying to regain some power for them, both of them are subject to the whim of her hot touch. 

His own hands come up to Ca’s shoulders, where he can imagine Cas’s wings, raven-like and huge like Carver Edlund described them. Kevin lightens his touch. If Kevin were a demon, he would mark the shoulder-blades of the de-winged angel, to scour the disgrace of falling with salt. By the way that Cas flinches, Kevin thinks he guessed right. Cas lets Kevin explore his shoulder even as his hands mapping out greedily the rough contours of Kevin’s face. Cas smiles like he doesn’t blame Kevin at all for this. Doesn’t blame Kevin for Cas being bloody and battered and lonely, for putting everyone at risk, for fucking it all up. Kevin sucks in a shaky breath, to apologize until Cas understands that he _never_ wanted anyone to burn with him. 

But that’s what everyone he touches _does_. They burn. Channing, and his mom, and Garth, and Sam, and now Cas—but Cas shakes his head, no. “Stay strong, Kevin,” he rasps, then, with crook of a wry smile, “Have faith.”

He licks his lips, but nods.

Abaddon snorts, like she knows _exactly_ what they have to be faithful about. 

And Cas brushes Kevin’s hair out of his face one last time before Abaddon drawls, “Come on, angel. I want my turn with you. Gonna take my sweet time.”

Kevin squeezes Cas’s shoulder, quickly, before Abaddon forces him away, and Cas limps before the Hell Knight, head held high. Kevin wants to pretend it’s not for his benefit, that it reflects Cas’s actual state of mind, but he hears the sharp intake of breath when Abaddon drags her nails down his back, then the door slams shut, leaving him alone again. 

* * *

Dean spots Kevin first, Sam not much behind. “Kev!” They both assume the thing in Kevin’s skin is Kevin. It isn’t.

“Hey,” his mouth pants, “Took you long enough, seriously.”

He feels himself smile, and Sam grins at him as he opens his arms for Kevin, opens himself—Kevin screams but nothing escapes, the demon keeping all of Kevin trapped inside his flesh—and the demon slams a knife into Sam’s throat for his concern. That same knife Sam had _given_ Kevin and now Sam’s blood gushes hot over Kevin’s hands. Dean realizes too-slow, yowling—how many times, now, has Dean watched his brother die? But this time, he is not long to follow.

The demon ducks past Dean’s swipe at him with Ruby’s knife, and plunges Sam’s knife into the juncture of his throat, the mirror to Sam’s wound. Dean falls like his brother did, surprise still written into the lines of his face. Except where Sam had still retained some of that joy, Dean’s expression reflects his grief. The Winchesters’ blood pools together, dark against the bright sidewalk. Tilting Kevin’s head back, the demon laughs—

And Kevin jerks upright in bed, blankets clinging to his skin with sweat. Kevin fights to free his hands from the tangle. No blood on his hands or beneath his fingernails, but his breathing is heavy and erratic, what if he killed them? He staggers to the closet, ignoring the throbbing in his temples. 

Kevin yanks his last rosary out from underneath the sheet. He fills the bathroom sink with water, then drops the beads in, and begins the chant. The third time he misses a word, Kevin can barely catch his breath—if he doesn’t hurry, they’ll find him at this again, but he has—he _needs_ to know. Slowing down, he makes it on the fourth try. 

Despite the chill of it, Kevin plunges his face into the holy water. But the sting of the cold is all he feels, no burning agony. He jerks back, gasping. 

Just because he isn’t possessed now, doesn’t mean he never was. This could mean everything or it could mean nothing. He pulls the rosary from the water, then drains the sink. Sam and Dean could still be dead at his hand for all he knows. 

Kevin slides down to the floor, resting his back against the wooden cabinets beneath the sink, handles digging sharp into his back. His fingers clutch white-knuckled at his rosary. 

* * *

Abaddon is the one to quell his anxiety. Days later, she bursts into the room to begin her usual litany of questions. Judging from the way she digs bruises into his jaw instead of her normal petting, she is just as bored as he is. 

But he cringes away when she grins. This is it. This is when she gloats about their dead bodies, slashed open with Sam’s last gift to Kevin. This is when he finds out that he’s gotten more people killed. “Sweetie, you know that bravery means nothing when you’re dead? Or when you have a demon in your meatsuit?”

Kevin snarls, reaching up to bat her hands away, like swatting away a fruit fly. She grabs his wrists, so hard he’ll have dark bruises later. Eyes black as pitch, she growls at him, “Keep it up. Maybe I’ll ride your ass and kill your boys myself.”

Under her touch, he relaxes. Abaddon, being Abaddon, takes this as surrender. 

Sam and Dean are alive, at least as far as Abaddon knows. For once, Kevin’s dream was just a dream instead of a memory. Kevin lets himself fall back on the bed, Abaddon’s hands pulling away from him as she surveys him with her mouth pursed. Kevin expects more threats, expects something, anything, but she leaves him there, like she has something better to do than question him. Probably she does. After all, she is trying to stage a coup of Hell. Pretty important stuff. He runs his tongue over lips.

For now, Sam and Dean are okay and Kevin is himself. He needs to do something about getting Cas and himself out of here if he wants it to remain that way. 

Since Abaddon probably won’t be back for awhile, Kevin figures he has some wiggle room. He takes the knife and the fire poker out from their hiding spot in the closet. Carefully, listening for the turn of the doorknob, Kevin drags the tip of the knife over the end of the poker, over and over, remembering the shape. 

It’s going to take some time. 

* * *

Kevin doesn’t realize right away. When Cas opens the door grinning bright, Kevin thinks that Cas has been able to do what Kevin hasn’t: find them a way out. He springs to his feet before the door slams shut behind Cas with a _thud_. “Cas?” he asks, tongue clumsy, “Cas? _Cas!_ ”

His blue blue eyes flicker to black. Kevin lunges towards him, hands outstretched. “Get out of him!” Kevin yowls, as he thumps his fists against the impostor’s chest, hard enough that Cas will bear the imprints of Kevin’s desperation later. The demon laughs. “Castiel!” Kevin yells, like maybe he can reach Cas somehow, but there’s nothing besides that mocking laughter. 

An invisible fore slams Kevin against the wall, so hard he can’t help but remember the last time that Cas pinned him to a wall, all snarled-anger. Kevin sucks in what air he can with the pressure on his ribs. “Abaddon’s too busy for you today, so I volunteered. Dear Cassie is so very concerned about you,” the demon sing-songs, out of place with Cas’s rough voice, “He’s awake you know. Trapped in his own _noodle_.”

There’s a dig in that word Kevin misses. He takes in a shuddery breath. “So what do you need me for? _Cassie_ knows where Crowley is.” (Evidently, Kevin is a gambling man, but his hands tremble where they’re pinned above his head, his hummingbird heartbeat fluttering in his throat.)

The air swells dark, crackling, and the pressure cuts off what air Kevin had been getting, till his vision edges white. 

Cas lets off just long enough for Kevin to take in one lungful of oxygen, before withholding it again. Apparently the real Cas is hiding the location of the bunker from the demon. Maybe it’s some ex-angel power? Or maybe it’s just that Cas is a stubborn bastard when he wants to be? Kevin isn’t sure. He suppresses a hysterical giggle: either way, Cas never does what anyone wants him to do. 

“Kev, Kev, Kev,” the demon curls Cas’s voice almost lovingly around the nickname, “Thought you were smarter than this. Cassie seems to think so, anyway. When he isn’t thinking you’re a selfish, melodramatic little bitch. I mean, just think about all the people who died because of you. How Heaven fell because you couldn’t be bothered to translate the tablet fast enough.”

Kevin breathes when the demon permits. Demons lie lie lie, like when Crowley said his mother was alive. Cas doesn’t think any of that, he can’t; Kevin shuts his eyes. This time, Dean isn’t here to smooth out the doubt with platitudes. “Eat me,” he grits out and looks to see Cas’s wide grin, so deranged that he could be a Chomper rather than a demon, and Kevin wouldn’t be surprised at all.

“When are you gonna get it?” muses the demon, “It isn’t about you. Cassie is awake in here, and I intend to give him a show. Tell me what I want to hear if you wanna change the channel, kiddo.”

(Somehow, the nightmares about Channing didn’t prepare him.)

Cas—not Cas, not Cas, but thinking of the demon as anything _but_ Cas when it wears Cas’s face proves nearly impossible—uses his soft hands to peel away the bandaging, baring the healing, shiny burn. Once his wound is exposed to the air, a whimper escapes from behind Kevin’s clenched teeth. Cas crows and his nails dig in to rip down the length of the burn, scabs catching then tearing off entirely, blood flowing in their wake. And Kevin screams as red oozes over his forearm, sticky and hot, and Cas slides his index finger beneath the flap of skin as he grins down at Kevin. His blood stains the underneath of Cas’s nails, and the tears spill over as he gazes up at Cas’s face. 

Tears, though, are never quite enough. Kevin stops breathing as Cas smears the blood over Kevin’s lower lip. 

Despite himself, his tongue darts out to taste the sharp iron tang. Cas unsheathes a knife—his thick blue sweater is going to be stained with Kevin’s blood. Real Cas buried alive deep in the coffin of his own flesh would probably hate that.

(Twice trapped, even, because this was not his body. Not until his Grace went to the sacrificial altar of Metatron’s vengeance. And now, Cas is trapped beneath the prison of his flesh by a demon he could have, once upon a time, killed easier than humans draw air.)

Kevin has experience with knives, both in reality and in his dreams. So it isn’t unusual for Kevin to fear a knife; it isn’t even unusual for Kevin to fear a knife in the hand of someone he cares about. 

But the funny thing is that—yeah, sure, it hurts, and Kevin wails and cries and screams—Kevin finds himself not paying Cas or the knife much mind. Maybe he’s gone into shock, maybe he’s found his “happy place,” maybe his brain has finally called it quits and locked down. 

Whatever it is, Kevin barely notices Cas. Instead, he remembers Sam and his lessons on fighting with knives. The rush, the adrenaline, the stink of Sam and Kevin’s sweat, the proud grin that lit Sam’s sweat-glistening face up, the purple-dark circles beneath Sam’s eyes, though he’d acted like the Trials weren’t still sapping his strength. Maybe it’s silly, to have forgiven the Winchesters, but Dean’s right—the brothers, probably Cas, and possibly Garth are the family Kevin’s got and the only people left who give a damn about him. And Kevin feels himself suck in a deep breath, then release a scream. 

His throat aches, as Cas cuts off Kevin’s shirt, moving on from Kevin’s forearms and collarbone. All Kevin can think, as the blade carves marks into his chest, is that now he’s on his way to a real Winchester collection of scars. 

 

Eventually, Cas leaves because Kevin tells him nothing useful. It takes awhile, but Kevin drags himself to the bathroom. He smears antibiotic cream onto his wounds, then bandages them up as well as he can manage. The cuts weren’t actually deep at all, he realizes now. Cas’s knife had merely sliced through the skin without actually hitting any of the important stuff. Probably more of a scare tactic than anything else. After all, they don’t want Kevin dead yet.

 Somehow, he sleeps, Cas’s blue eyes an unsettling weight in his dreams. Before they turn black, anyway. 

* * *

One thing Kevin can safely say about Abaddon is that she makes herself very clear. 

“You run out of here without Cas, and we’ll kill him. Then, you can be the one to explain to the Winchesters why their former pet angel is only scraps.” 

The door slams shut behind her and all Kevin can think is that escaping is going to be so much harder than if it had only been him. Not only does he have to get himself free, but he has to exorcise Cas, then find a way to get them both out in one piece. All of which hinges on how hard the demon under Cas’s skin has been riding him. Kevin flops back on his bed, rubs his temples where his head’s already throbbing with the beat of his heart. 

(He tries not to think about the twist of Castiel’s mouth, the pitch-black eyes; he forces himself not to finger the scabbed over cuts, because it wasn’t Cas. That time Cas pinned him against the wall to tell him that Kevin would never be free of his destiny, sure it had stung and been scary, but it hadn’t _hurt_. Well, his pride had hurt—because Cas was right. Kevin wasn’t allowed to sit out just because he didn’t want to be a prophet.) 

As much as he wants to lay in bed and never, ever move again, he has _got_ to get a move on. With Abaddon leaving, now is the time to do it. Kevin lurches out the bed.

It’s a funny thing, but Kevin finds himself grateful for something in this shithole. The demon wearing Cas left his hands untouched. So even though his forearms and chest _hurt_ and that makes his life harder, he feels oddly grateful. 

First, he tests himself with holy water again. Still not possessed, or, at least, not currently possessed. Good. He stuffs the rosary back into the closet. Then, Kevin pulls out the poker and the knife. Using the knife to carve into the poker is a slow, unforgiving, and thankless task. Especially because Kevin is constantly listening for the door. He can’t afford to lose this. Probably, it will take forever to carve what he needs into the poker with the little knife, but he has to try. Because pacing will drive him crazy, and this is something to do. 

* * *

The routine falls apart one day when the lackey demon brings in some kind of wall-mounted speaker, a drill, and a ladder rather than food. Kevin sits up from where he’d been half-asleep on the bed. The demon uses the drill to mount the speaker against the wall, then tapes down the wires that lead out the door with electrical tape. “You’re gonna have a lot of fun, prophet.” He grins at Kevin. “Shoulda given her what she wanted to begin with.”

Laughing, the demon exits. Kevin crosses the room, then stands on his tiptoes till, by stretching, his fingertips brush plastic. His brows furrow. Change is rarely a good sign in scenarios like this. Whatever Abaddon has cooked up can’t be pleasant. 

The speaker makes itself known not long after. Razor zipping across his skin, Kevin uses soap to shave, dragging the plastic shaver over the swell of his Adam’s apple—when screaming echoes in the bathroom, amplifying the sound until Kevin can hear the heave of a desperate breath, followed by a piercing cry. His hand slips—he recognizes that voice. He drops the bloodied razor to the floor and darts to the door. The sound of him pounding on the door doesn’t begin to drown out Cas’s screams. 

Eventually, the speaker silences, leaving only the futile thump of Kevin’s now-raw palm against the door and the uneven rise-and-fall of Kevin’s breathing. 

Once his hands steady, Kevin returns to the bathroom to finish his face and to examine the still-bleeding cut at his throat. Just as he shaves away the last swipe of hair, the speaker comes alive again. Abaddon’s laughter reverberates wild off the tile of the bathroom till he’s shivering with her imagined proximity. His hands shake as he rinses his face, losing half the water from his cupped palms as he brings them up. 

The speaker shuts off again. 

Again and again, over and over, the speaker comes to life—sometimes with Abaddon’s coarse laughter, sometime’s with Cas’s screams, sometimes it just goes off like an amplified fire alarm, and sometimes people Kevin doesn’t even know are screaming over the system. Kevin counts it out—1200 Mississippis—so, every 20 minutes, the speaker turns on and stays on for—300 Mississippis—five minutes like clockwork. 

 

He tries everything to sleep. 

Kevin tries putting the pillow and all his bedding over his head, tries sleeping under the bed, tries curling up in the bathtub in a nest of blankets. But the speaker always jars him to waking, heart leaping in his chest.  

* * *

By time Abaddon comes calling, Kevin is curled on his bed, shaking hands pressing his ears flat against his head. 

Her fingers comb through the sweat-slick strands of his hair. “Hello, Kevin,” she says, her voice soft and gentle, nothing like her laugher over the speaker, “Missed me?”

It takes more effort than it should to lift his head to look at her—three minutes till the speaker flares to life—and she grins when she catches sight of his red puffy eyes and pale face. Her fingertips brush the curve of his jaw tenderly. “Tell me about Crowley.” Kevin shakes his head and shuts his eyes. 

Abaddon’s nails catch in warning against his stubble and he shivers. She hums her displeasure. “No? Then you don’t want to go to sleep?”

A raw whine escapes him, but Abaddon laughs and he’s _so_ familiar with that sound by now that he hunches his shoulders, turning his face away from her. “I’m not… No,” but his voice is reed-thin, weak against the onslaught of her derision. “I won’t.”

“”Well, I _am_ a busy woman.” Her hands pull back sharply, nails digging red lines into his face. 

Her warmth recedes and he should be grateful. 

* * *

Kevin closes his eyes against the gathering wetness when Cas’s screams begin anew. 

* * *

Without using his knife, Kevin can’t cut down the wires to stop the infernal thing. And the wires are strong enough he can’t just rip them away. So the speaker wakes him again and again and again. 

Times runs together, everything blurs together badly as his vision does. Kevin gives up bathing the seventh time the soap slips out of his grip and he nearly slips on it. He gives up shaving even before that, after the third time he slashes open his face. 

His hands shake constantly, worse than when he first got here. Carving the poker becomes almost impossible, no matter how slow he goes. But he does it anyway, meticulous and cautious, because he needs something to do besides count Mississippis. 

* * *

Cas comes in with a carefree smile on his face. “You’re not looking so good, Kevin,” he drawls, “You should really try to get some shut-eye.” He sets something down on the table where they put his food.

Kevin squints a glare at him, room spinning as he tries to focus on Cas. The words barely make sense, a jumble of syllables he struggles to pull meaning from. “No,” he manages by rote memorization. 

At the very least, Kevin hasn’t forgotten the script. 

Laughter as the demon approaches. He lifts Kevin with one-oversized hand—it’s easy to forget that Cas is not a small man when the Winchesters are his counterparts—around Kevin’s throat. Kevin’s feet dangle as black spots obscure his vision. “Cassie is screaming in here for you to tell me everything. Know why, kiddo? Because I told him what I’m gonna do to you if you don’t. You really gonna make him watch?”

The grip relaxes for Kevin to gasp out, “I—“ the room spins and he shuts his eyes, croaks, “Fuck off.”

Cas tightens his hold again. Last time someone tried to strangle him to death, it was Crowley and Metatron saved him. There is no rescue this time. Only a closet, a poker, or a rosary. If Kevin could laugh, he would. He’s so screwed. Cas could be dead under the possession now for all Kevin knows, body worn to bits. 

Finally, the pressure alleviates and Kevin takes in all the oxygen he’s allowed before Cas cuts it off again. Then, Cas dumps him onto the bed. Kevin shies away when Cas’s fingers tug at the hem of his shirt. 

Kevin remembers this dance. He still has the scabs and bandaging as mementos. 

All the bandages from last time are bared to the inky-black of Cas’s stare. His chapped mouth twists with mirth. “Cassie liked how pretty you were,” he says, off-handed, “How innocent he could pretend you were. Like maybe he had managed to protect the prophet from _some_ hardship. I guess he liked playing at arch-angel after he smoked Raphael. Let’s show him how wrong he was, shall we? Safeword is ‘I’ll tell you everything.’ “

The knife flashes under the low florescent as it slices through the bandaging like scissors through paper. Power pins Kevin’s wrists and ankles in place, spread out for the demon and his knife. Despite Kevin’s struggles, nothing happens except his muscles bunching and straining beneath his skin. Cas examines the half-healed cuts that mark their last session, then grins that crazy grin of his. Kevin whimpers with it, throat bruised and raw. Slowly, so slowly, each second seeming to drag out for ages, despite Kevin being so good at counting seconds now, Cas digs the knife into an old wound, dragging the blade up the length of it. The cut stretches from his hip to his fifth rib up, blood gushing out, stinking like iron and bleeding hot. Kevin screams as he pulls at the invisible bonds so hard that, were there any substance to them, he’d probably cut his wrists and ankles all to hell. 

Cas shifts his attention to a cut from collarbone to left elbow, slicing down deeper than the original wound. Cas’s face swims even more in Kevin’s vision.

Pink tongue poked out, Cas leans down and drags the muscle rough over the cut, wetting his mouth with Kevin’s blood. The skin parts further beneath the attention, more red oozing out to fill Cas’s mouth, his tongue like fire where it aggravates the wounds. Kevin cries out, the hot stream of tears down his own cheeks. 

Once he’s sated himself with Kevin’s blood, Cas moves the knife to the next wound: he digs the tip of the blade into Kevin’s right shoulder, drags it down down over his chest, then lessens the pressure, barely parts skin as he traces down to Kevin’s navel. Cas watches as the bed and Kevin and himself are soaked red and wet, his full mouth shining dark with Kevin’s blood. “Feel like a real Winchester?” voice husky, “Cassie’ll be able to see his handiwork the rest of your pathetic lives.”

“N-not if… I k-keep bleeding—like—like this,” he pants.

“We should do something about that, shouldn’t we?” Cas pulls the dripping blade away.

He places the knife beside Kevin’s head and then flicks two fingers toward Kevin. A bottle of whiskey and a suture kit fly into Cas’s hands from somewhere else in the room. Probably that was what he’d put on the table. Then, the black of his eyes lighten to that intense blue, like the sky peaking out from behind the clouds in the middle of storm. “Kevin?” Cas croaks, hands fumbling to cup Kevin’s face, “Oh—Kevin. I—I am—“ his voice cuts out.

Kevin’s breath hitches. “Cas?”

It might be a trick. Killing him with kindness, or something. Kevin shuts his eyes as his chest heaves with a sob—the cuts on his chest _pull_ and he gasps, making it worse, and he can’t _breathe,_ trying to pull air in, but he’s just gasping, gasping, childlike, panicked. “Cas, I’m sorry,” it comes out a thready whine, “I’m so—so—sorry!”

But Cas simply smoothes the blood matted bangs from Kevin’s face. “Blaming yourself will not… This is going to hurt, Kevin. I need for you to breathe.”

Easier said than done. But Cas’s fingers splayed out on his head, the concern and fear shining wetly in Cas’s eyes—Kevin draws breath, then has to ask, “Do you— Do you kn-know what you’re d-doing?” His chest rises and falls too fast. 

“I have watched humanity since the dawn of mankind,” he says, gently, and Kevin closes his eyes with the burst of warmth in his gut. He hears the scrape of metal on glass, slow and wavering. Cas must be opening the whiskey; Kevin closes his eyes even tighter. “I will manage. Stay with me, Kevin. Breathe.”

The first splash of whiskey _sears_ , makes him scream with his already broken voice. His vision whites out and his pulse thunders in his ears, till he can only barely make out Cas’s chant of Kevin’s name, so deep and low and raw that Kevin aches with it, because Cas has enough problems without freaking out about what some demon did to Kevin. He thinks he blacks out for the actual stitching, because by time he comes to, Cas is dragging a now-pink washcloth over his skin. “Drink,” Cas orders, tilting Kevin’s head up then putting the bottle of whiskey to his lips, “I should have done this first. I apologize.”

Kevin drinks as much as Cas allows him, the alcohol burning in the empty pit of his stomach. “It will scar. My skills are not—I am a soldier, not a healer. Had I my power—“

He shakes his head, eyes fluttering shut as he croaks out, “It’s okay. I’m sorry, Cas. I’m so sorry.”

The blessed thing is that, despite the stupid speaker, Kevin passes out and doesn’t wake for a long time. 

 

Of course, the reprieve is short. When he wakes, the whiskey is gone and so is Cas. Somebody has changed his sheets and clothes. His whole cell stinks like sweat and blood, till he can taste it, and his stitches pull when he moves too quickly. And that damn alarm goes off every 20 minute cycle. 

 

Sleep stays away, even the agony of the demon’s handiwork not enough to drag him under often.

* * *

Kevin slowly levers himself off the bed. He picks his way over to the closet to retrieve the rosary—the cup of water beside his bed makes enough holy water for him to be sure and, more important, it’s nearer than the bathroom. It’s only after the water doesn’t burn his esophagus that Kevin relaxes.

Once he hides away the rosary again, he digs back into the closet. The fire poker is reassuring in his hand, but Cas’s knife—Kevin stares at it for a whole cycle and through the five minutes of following laughter before he finally grasps it. 

Kevin listens for the twist of the doorknob even as he sets his shaking hands to work, the tip of the blade scraping against the iron, scratching like the digging of rats in walls. Finally, the lines are starting to show. Some proof of his effort, at least. 

He works two cycles before he stows away the knife and poker. When he slides under the covers, he stares up at the ceiling, flat on his back to keep weight off his chest. 

* * *

Kevin hides the poker and the knife under the bed when he hears the door. Flopped on his back, he shudders—god, they’re going to find everything—“Been awhile, prophet,” Abaddon purrs, leather boots thumping heavy as she walks in, “Heard you were a bad boy for my angel.”

Her legs spread as she stands over him, one foot planted on either side of his hips. Still-wet blood glistens red on her face. The door slams behind her. “You’re looking a bit peaky, honey.”

A glint at her hip draws his gaze. An angel blade hangs all covered in blood and his eyes dart up to her grin and he has to fight not to match it. What’s left? He’s got to finish the poker. Cas needs to, for certain, be in the building. And Kevin needs sleep. Poker. Sleep. Cas. Kevin can do that. 

His mouth twists. “I’m not buying what you’re selling.”

Abaddon makes no move to touch him, which Kevin of course wouldn’t want anyway. He flinches under her examination as he expects her grin but her expression is flat, nearly blank, and Kevin—Kevin fights to regulate his breathing. “I’m losing patience.” Abaddon crouches, so the curve of her ass brushes his pelvis. “So far, I’ve had the luxury of time to deal with you. But you’re becoming a problem for me, Kevin.”

“Bite me.”

He half expects her to. Instead, she leaves him there on the floor, only the lingering warmth from her body and the elevated rate of his heartbeat to remember her by. The door slams shut behind her, message clear: _you’re running out of time._

Kevin spends four cycles battling his jittery nerves and shaking hands as he works more with the poker. 

* * *

Days pass as he cautiously carves and carves.

Kevin passes his fingertips over the indent in the poker. It isn’t much—but it’s gonna have to be enough. He waits till Abaddon returns.

* * *

As usual, she doesn’t disappoint. By time she deigns to show up, though, Kevin is desperate. The room spins, his hands shake, and, worse, his thoughts move slow, like he’s losing a game of telephone against himself. 

“Will you let me sleep?” he asks, barely audible over the heavy tread of her steps. 

“Give me something, and I’ll think about it.” Abaddon folds her arms over her chest. “I’m waiting.”

His gaze darts to her hip again—the angel blade is clean this time. Kevin’s tongue pokes out to drag over his lower lip. “Okay. Okay. I uh. Demons can be cured. They can be made human again by being purified with special blood and some kind of ritual. I don’t—they never told me what else it entailed. But I know—I know it can be done.”

“I need more than that, sweetheart. You’ve kept me waiting a long time.”

“It’s um—It’s one of the Hell Trials, to cure a demon,” he looks down at his hands, curling his knees up onto the bed, “The Hell Trials would. They would—they’d close the Gates of Hell. Forever.”

Her hands invade his space, brushing his hair out of his face. Warmth seeps into him where her skin brushes his and Kevin bites his lip. “Good, sweetie. See how much easier this is?”

Kevin can’t meet her gaze as he nods. “I’m not—“ he clears his throat, “I’m not telling you anything else until you let me sleep.”

“It’s a start,” as she yanks away her hands and the warmth goes with. 

Honestly, he half-expects her to demand _more_ but maybe she knows by now that he won’t say anything until he’s ready, until he gets something out of the deal. Either way, 20 minutes after she leaves, the cycle breaks and Kevin sleeps—

His dreams are of Sam and Dean and his mom and Garth eating in the bunker. 

* * *

When the speaker wakes him, Kevin blinks his eyes open groggily. He could probably have slept forever. But—but it’s time to get everything ready. 

Kevin drags his sorry carcass out of bed, and he pulls out the knife. 

* * *

“If I… If I tell you something else, will you let me see Castiel?” Kevin asks Abaddon next time she comes calling. 

The door slams behind her and she closes the distance between them, her legs bracketing his knees. Kevin doesn’t get off the bed; he simply stares up at her. Her hand settles under his chin, fingers hot against his skin and he knows she can feel the staccato beat of his heart. Abaddon leans down, presses her wet mouth to his forehead, soothing and gentle. “You see?” she breathes into his moist skin, “It’s so much easier when you work with me, sweetie. Of course you can see the angel.” Abaddon pets his hair, and Kevin swallows. 

“Sam and Dean—they—“ He shuts his eyes tightly shut, but he can’t back out. More than anything, he needs a way out of this. “The Men of Letters have information on how to kill Hell Knights. They haven’t worked it out all the way. At least, they hadn’t while I was there, but they will. And then they’re coming for you.”

Abaddon hums, fingers stilling in the strands. “Is that meant to scare me, little prophet? Going to have to better than that,” she commands, yanking the hair at his nape. 

He is forced to look her in the eyes. “Crowley is alive, but they’ve half-cured him. He’s different now. Not much of a threat to you. Once you get your hands on him, your coup is a guaranteed success,” he whispers, hopes to God this satisfies her. 

“You do know how to tell a girl what she wants to hear, don’t you? Tell me more,” and her grips on him tightens. 

“No.” Kevin recoils. “Not until I’ve seen Cas. I won’t—I won’t tell you anything else till then.”

Abaddon’s eyes narrow, but she smiles, giving and open. “Fine. But this is a supervised visit, honey.”

And then she saunters out, and Kevin swears. This was _not_ the plan. She chooses _now_ to not underestimate him? Seriously? But, he’s got to work with what he’s got. 

 

Kevin hides the poker under the pillow and sits on the bed in wait. 

 

The first thing Kevin notices about Cas when Abaddon ushers him in is the pudgy purple circles beneath his eyes. “Kevin,” he rasps, and God, Kevin hopes—hopes Cas is up for being rescued, that the demon hasn’t ridden him to breaking. Kevin sucks in a breath. “Are you… unhurt?”

“Better than you,” he counters, a sick heat curling in his stomach as Abaddon saunters to Cas and cups her hand over the strength of his jawline. 

Cas flinches away from the touch, and Kevin bites his lip as Abaddon keeps her attention on Cas. Kevin is never going to get a better opportunity. Honestly, he may never get _another_ opportunity. 

Pride, as ever, is her folly. Abaddon doesn’t notice until Kevin yanks the poker from under the pillow. He darts forward as she lifts her hand, smile falling finally. Sucking in a breath, he plunges the poker into her stomach, twists it in and _up_ , and the Devil’s Trap works. Like her puppet strings have been cut, Abaddon drops, barely able to _blink_ her fury at him. Kevin has no idea how long this will _last_ but—

The demon wearing Cas snaps control back. Kevin runs into the bathroom, grabbing his cup of holy water “ _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,_ ” and the demon stalks after him. 

“I’m going to string your empty corpse up for the Winchesters to find,” he growls at the pain of the exorcism jerking his head, even as his hand raises to curl into a fist. Kevin chokes as the pressure crushes his windpipe. 

Cas takes another step forward—Kevin grins, feral, feeling almost like a demon himself, as the power at his neck dissipates. Snarling, Cas looks up at the ceiling. The Devil’s Trap drips with Kevin’s blood, from where Kevin had stood on the sink and painted it on with a torn corner of the sheet. Kevin leaves the bathroom to where Abaddon is lifting her hand, fumbling for the poker. He takes the angel blade from her side. Hands shaking, he stabs it into where her heart should be. 

Even as blood splatters out hot and acrid, there’s no orange flash, and she chokes on a laugh. Her hand closes on the poker. Kevin shuts his eyes and severs her head from her neck. Her blood drenches him—his hands, his shoes, gets in his mouth and the darkness of it goes to his head, power swelling, and he gags. 

He grips her head by the blood-matted hair, and carries it to the bathroom. Kevin tosses her head into the Devil’s Trap. 

Cas lifts the head to toss it back out just as Kevin begins the exorcism anew. The demon jerks, Abaddon’s slick head falling out his hands. Kevin keeps chanting. “ _T_ _e rogamus, audi nos_ ,” and black smoke pours out their mouths. Cas drops heavily, blood trickling out his mouth like a slow thawing stream. “Cas!” he crouches beside him, and puts two fingers to Cas’s neck to feel the fluttery bird-pulse. 

Blue eyes lift slow as if weighted down. “Kevin?” he rasps, red spittle flecking his lips. 

“Yeah. I know you probably—“ Kevin worries at his bottom lip, “We have to get out of here. Do you think you can walk?”

Cas’s shirt bleeds through at his left shoulder, and he groans as he levers himself upright, Kevin’s bloody hand supporting the small of his back. “There are other demons. I fear I will not be of much assistance.”

“I’ve got your sword. We’ll be okay. If you can just walk—“ Kevin holds out his hand, “I’ll do the rest. But we’ve got to move _now_.”

Even with Kevin’s assistance, it takes way too long for Cas to get his feet under him. Kevin retrieves the roll of bandaging and the antiseptic from the bathroom, then quickly binds up Cas’s wound. A gunshot, from the looks of it. Kevin doesn’t see a bullet lodged in there, so he hopes Cas’ll be okay till they can get help. Kevin shoves the blood-slick poker into Cas’s hand, and Cas nods at him. They exit the room into a hallway, and Kevin nods to the stairs, and they creep in that direction. 

With every creak as they make their way down the stairs, Kevin expects the horde to descend upon them. But the ground floor is deserted. Clean and average looking, Kevin takes a breath to wonder what Abaddon did to the family that once lived here. He shakes his head. “Cas,” he whispers, “Is there a back door?”

“Yes.”

They’re picking their way towards the kitchen when the front door creaks open. Lackey-demon blinks at them for a second, before his mouth curls into a snarl and he lunges forward, hand outstretched to fling them back. Cas slams with a _thump_ into the wall, and cries out so loud that Kevin thinks that any of the other demons will probably be on them soon. 

Yelling, Kevin evades the fist aimed at him, feeling the air of the blow against his cheek, to rush the demon blade first. A foot collides hard with his stomach and the breath rushes out of Kevin all at once and somehow he is on the floor, blade still in hand. The demon looms over him as Cas chokes against the wall. Kevin propels himself upwards. The demon grabs Kevin’s neck, squeezing hard. But the blade sinks into the demon’s shoulder. Kevin _pushes_ , the blade digging deeper. With a shout, the demon flings Kevin to the ground again. 

Back alight with pain, Kevin can only stare as the demon stalks to him, face twisted with fury while his blood drips from the wound on his shoulder. The demon picks up the fallen angel blade and raises it, to plunge it into Kevin’s chest—but he doesn’t notice Cas breaking free. Doesn’t notice Cas retrieving the poker. 

The iron stabs through the demon’s neck. He drops the angel blade. Kevin rolls to avoid the falling blade, then scrambles to pick it up. 

Orange light flashes as Kevin slams the angel blade into the demon’s chest. 

He looks at Cas. “Okay?” And then, at Cas’s nod, he wipes the bloody blade on his pants. “Let’s—“

Another demon streaks into the room barely pausing to take in the scene. The sturdily-built woman throws Cas into the kitchen and he collides with the counter. Cas cries out once, then is silent and bleeding on the floor. As the demon approaches, Kevin circles her, gripping tightly the angel blade. 

They stare at each other and he remembers time spent in the bunker doing this with Sam. Kevin dodges the first kick, but takes the second with his hip. He falls heavy, the blade falling out of his hand. As he tries to rise, his hip grinds and pops and he hisses in pain. The demon laughs. She steps toward him and Kevin kicks her in the knee with his good leg. For a second, she falters—stumbles back, snarling at him, and he stretches out his hand, then closes his fingers around the hilt of the angel blade. 

His hip screams as he lurches to his feet, but he bares his teeth at the demon. She comes at him fast and hard, and he dodges and dodges and dodges, quick as he can, because he can’t take another hit like that, already tiring from his first fight and lack of sleep. Still stiff from the stitches that tug at his skin. 

The opening is a tiny thing. She lashes out with a kick that he sidesteps, and her momentum pulls her forward too far, and he slips into that opening, stabbing the blade into her side. The demon cries out. Kevin doesn’t wait for her to recover. He sinks the blade into her throat and watches her life flicker orange. 

Kevin pants, sweat and blood plastering his hair in his face. “Cas?” he calls out, hands shaking so badly he can barely keep ahold of the blood-drenched sword. “Cas?”

He hobbles to the kitchen, hip grinding with every step. Cas lay unmoving on the linoleum, but his heart beats slow and steady when Kevin feels his pulse. “Wake up, Cas. Come on. We need to get out here.”

But Cas doesn’t wake up. Kevin pours a glass of water from the tap, then drizzles some of it onto the former angel’s face. Gasping, Cas comes to. He looks at Kevin with unfocused eyes and groans. “Come on, Cas,” Kevin tells him, voice low and what he hopes passes as comforting, “We have to get out of here.”

This time, Kevin has to support most of Cas’s weight as they stagger their way out the front door. No other demons seem to be waiting, but Kevin isn’t about to hang around to find out for sure. As they make their way to the SUV in the driveway, Kevin bites his lip to bleeding. Every step makes his hip sear and, worse, his vision begins to blur again, everything slow and spinning. God, if there is another demon, it’s pretty much over. 

Kevin almost cries in relief when he finds the key in the ignition. He unlocks all the doors, and carefully places Cas in the backseat. Tries not to notice that blood is seeping through at his shoulder again. There’s nothing he can do about it now. 

Inside the glovebox is $100 in cash, probably for gas, and Kevin thinks maybe Abaddon has some sort of effective system going after all. 

He drives. 

* * *

Kevin drives until he can’t see straight. Well, he couldn’t see straight to begin with, really, but it’s worse now that the adrenaline’s left his system. Kevin barely slows down until they’re nearly out of gas two hours later. He stops at a gas station just outside Phoenix, and cuts the engine. For a second, all he can do is rest his forehead against the steering wheel. And then he smells the iron-salt of blood and remembers Castiel in the back.

He puts on a hoodie he finds in the back and switches his blood-soaked shoes out for Cas’s less bloody ones. Kevin uses the public bathroom to clean himself off as best he can—at least wipe away the worst of the blood on his hands and face. Beyond that, there’s not much else he can do about his appearance. 

Kevin heads into the main part of the store, and buys some jerky, some orange juice, a big mug of coffee, and a first aid kid. Then, as he’s handing over the handful of bills, he asks, “Can I use your phone?”

The man behind the counter shrugs, eyeing him with suspicion. Kevin is going to have to get the hell out of here before the guy calls the cops. “There’s a pay phone on the side. Need change?”

“Yes, please.”

Thank God he has their number’s memorized. Sam picks up on the fourth ring. “Hello?” he asks, voice sharp and it’s literally the best thing Kevin has heard in weeks. 

It takes him a second to not cry, but then he says, “It’s Kevin Hey. Um. I have Cas and we’re… we’re in Phoenix…”

“Kevin!” Sam sounds—happy? Worried? Kevin can’t place the emotion, but the world is swimming again as he feeds the machine more quarters, so he takes another gulp of coffee, burns his tongue but barely feels it, “Are you okay? Is Cas okay?”

“Yeah. I th-think. Cas. He um. He was. Hurt? But he’s breathing. I just checked. So um. What… Where should we? I don’t know if I still have demons on my tail, so… I didn’t want to just go back to the bunker. What should we do?” and he has no idea, feels like a five-year-old who broke the vase, and he wants to cry again, swallows thickly against it. 

There’s a pause, where he can hear Dean and Sam conversing in the background and he allows the familiar lull of their voices calm him as he sucks in breaths. “Meet us in Vegas, near the Eiffel Tower. We’ll come and get you. Okay? Can you do that, Kevin? We think it’s best if you keep moving,” Sam tells him, voice soothing, like somehow he knows Kevin is seconds from freaking out, which, given Kevin’s history and the fact he’s been trying not to cry the whole time, is a pretty fair assessment. 

“Yeah. I can do it. Got us this far. So. Vegas. We have some money. We’re okay. I’ll…” he swallows, makes a promise he doesn’t know if he can keep, “I’ll make sure Cas is okay. See you soon, Sam.” And then he hangs up, before he remembers that Sam might’ve had more instructions for him. 

Kevin heads back to the SUV, then drives them about ten minutes away, before he crawls into the backseat with Cas. He treats Cas’s shoulder wound again, tries to find any other wounds he can deal with. Apart from some slashes on his back, the rest seems to be bright black and purple bruises all over his body. So Kevin gets into the driver’s seat again. And gets onto the interstate towards Vegas. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for: allusions to past alcohol/drug abuse by a minor, and nightmares.

The Vegas lights against the desert dark nearly blind Kevin as he sights the city. Hands cramped from gripping the wheel so long, he snakes one over to crank the radio up, till the bass shakes the whole car, and Kevin wonders if Cas will ever wake up. His own eyes droop but he blinks aware. The lights shine like starburts in his vision, blurring everything else. 

Kevin finds the Eiffel Tower with relative ease, then parks the car out front. He leaves it running so the music blares on and on ( _I crashed my car into a bridge I watched I let it burn_ ) and he rubs at his itchy eyes with trembling hands, throat suddenly dry as the desert outside. After awhile, he remembers to reach back and checks Cas’s pulse. It’s thready and slow as Kevin measures it against the quick quick beat ( _I love it I don’t care_ —except Kevin does, he does care, he cares more than anything). So far, Cas is alive. 

The sky lightens from dusky purple to lavender with streaks of baby pink by time the Impala rumbles into view. Kevin fumbles for the door, manages to get a grip around the handle and pushes it open.

Stiff with sitting and his stitches, Kevin half-falls out the car when he forces himself out. Which is one way to make an entrance, he supposes. Sam leaps out of the Impala before it even growls to a stop—and for a horrible, breathless second, he expects Sam’s eyes to gleam yellow—but then Sam dribbles water onto Kevin’s face from a steel flask, then crouches to test a silver blade flat against Kevin’s skin as Dean throws himself out of his car.

“Kevin,” Sam breathes out as he hoists Kevin up like Kevin is hollow. His hands press into Kevin’s stitches, makes Kevin hiss out a breath like the warning a snake gives. “Where are you hurt?”

Dean enters Kevin’s view carrying Cas. “He’s clean,” Dean barks at Sam, like Kevin isn’t there. 

“Are y-you c-clean?” Kevin asks, shivering in Sam’s grip. To his relief, they both douse themselves with the flask-water without complaint. It could be normal water but Kevin’s eyes shut anyway. That has to be good enough.

The steady beat of Sam’s heartbeat lulls him to sleep. 

* * *

Kevin wakes in his bedroom. “Cas?” he wheezes, “Sam? Dean?”

Nobody answers as he peers through the overlay of fog that has settled over his vision, trying to lull him back to sleep. Unsteadily, he pushes himself up and, as his wounds make themselves known, his vision sharpens with the hot ache. He sucks in a breath then throws his feet over the side of the bed. Swaying once he gets his feet under him, he croaks out, “Cas?” and then staggers to the open door. 

He never slept with it open, but he takes it as a sign of their deference rather than an invasion of privacy. Apart from that, the bunker is exactly as he remembers. Dark, buzzing with the old lanterns that probably lit things better before the Men of Letters were slaughtered, and lonely. He picks his way to the main room with its long table. 

Finds Sam reading a musty book. “Sam?” 

In one fluid movement, Sam is on his feet. He crosses to Kevin. Gentle hands on Kevin’s shoulders, Sam steadies him. “Hey, take it easy,” reassuring as he guides him to the chair still warmed by Sam’s heat, “You’ve been pretty out of it the last few days. How… You feeling any better?”

“What about Cas?”

Sam blinks his doe-eyed concern, days worth of stubble dark on his square jaw. Before the whole prophet thing, Kevin had wanted to look like that: rugged and strong, like the protagonists in the movies. But that was a long time ago, when his looks had seemed important. “Dean’s keeping an eye on him,” but a muscle in his cheek jumps and his nostrils flare out so wide Kevin could probably fit like, two whole fingers in there if he tried. Not that he would. That would be gross. 

But, beyond the weird nose thing, Kevin knows that something is up. There is something Sam’s hiding because he thinks that Kevin can’t handle it. Screw that. “What’s—“ his voice gives out, which isn’t a great start, but Kevin clears his throat to push on, “What’s wrong? Is Cas okay?”

“…Dean says he is. But I haven’t—he said to let him worry about Cas and I should look after you. Don’t worry about it. Seriously, shortstop. Just… How are _you_ feeling? You’re pretty beat up,” but Sam keeps frowning, his fingers curling and uncurling, like he wants to get his hands on something. Probably his brother to shake out the answers from him like a bully taking a nerd’s lunch money in old cartoons. 

Kevin doesn’t giggle, no. It’s more of a dignified chortle. Sam’s brows furrow—somewhere between concern and amusement, so he sort of looks constipated instead. So Kevin pats Sam’s oversized shoulder; under his palm, Sam is hot like a heater, and Kevin wants to curl up and sleep heavy under that warmth—his eyelids droop half-lidded. “I’m okay, I think. Sore. Tired. I think—I think I could sleep forever, Sam,” and words keep pouring out, even though he’s not so sure what he’s saying, but when was the last time he talked to somebody who wasn’t a demon?

When was the last time he touched someone? 

He leans his head against Sam’s stomach where Sam is still standing beside what was Sam’s chair and is now Kevin’s, listens to the gurgling complaints of Sam’s gut—sounds like Sam hasn’t had anything but coffee all day.  A huge warm hand engulfs the top of Kevin’s head, fingertips sliding through his hair. He winces to remember Abaddon but then he eases into the offered comfort, breath evening out and—Kevin falls asleep in the wooden chair leaning against Sam, drooling into the wrinkles of Sam’s shirt. 

His eyes snap open when someone wakes him. “Wha?”  

“Come on, dude. My brother is _not_ a comfy bed. Trust me,” Dean’s voice in his ear is rough, which is sort of funny, given how delicate his features are, especially compared to his brother.

Somewhere far away, Sam laughs deep in his chest. “Says you.” Kevin discovers his eyes have shut again. 

“Yeah, says me,” Dean snaps, all bark no bite, because he laughs a second later, and Kevin marvels. His laughter is open, not bogged down by mysteries and secrets and whatever else Dean has rattling in his skull on a given day that makes him nearly unbearable so much of the time. “You’re all angular and shit. Friggin’ kills my back, man.”

Kevin peeks an eye open to find Sam sitting at the table in the chair Kevin is fairly certain he had fallen asleep in, with a discarded blanket pooled around his ankles. “Cas?” Kevin asks Dean. 

“Fine. Recovering from—yeah. He’s gonna be just fine, kid. You did good.” They’re moving again just as Kevin realizes he should probably say he can walk himself. He has enough trouble convincing them to take him seriously, without being carried like a child pretending to be asleep. 

“Cas was possessed,” Kevin insists, “Is he okay?”

The motion ceases with Dean’s put-upon sigh. As if he is the only one allowed to worry about Cas, like he has the monopoly on Cas-affection. It is so unfathomable to Dean that anyone else could care about Cas that Dean can’t even _answer_ Kevin; no, Sam has to do that after those 20 Mississippis of silence. “Yeah. We uh. Had a few run-ins with him while he was possessed. He’s going to be just fine, Kev. You just sleep, okay?”

So Kevin does. Because last time he didn’t listen when Sam told him to sleep, Kevin wound up going crazy and then he got captured by Abaddon. Sleep is a beautiful thing. 

* * *

Kevin wakes to find Cas sitting at the foot of his bed. “You are looking better,” Cas comments, rising with a rustle of cloth. “Are you feeling well?”

With a nod, Kevin lets out a slow yawn. “Yeah. I’m good. What about you?”

Cas looks at him, distant, but he nods. At the very least, he looks better, though his movements are still stiff. Given the all the bruising and the gun wound, that’s probably not much of a surprise. But he’s alive, which is great, even if no one but Dean is allowed to see him.“So uh… Dean been looking after you?” Kevin asks, fingers dragging along his bedspread, “Sam’s been worried.”

Silence meets his statement as Cas peers up at the ceiling, blinking owlishly. Dark stubble dusts his jaw, and Kevin sort of wishes he would shave. “I should not be here. But I wished to thank you for your rescue, though that should not have been your burden to bear.”

Kevin stands and crosses to Cas before he has time to think about his actions. He puts his hand on Cas’s unhurt shoulder. “It was my fault you were there,” Kevin points out, “The least I could do was…”

“Your plan was daring and commendable, though risky. We are lucky that she was using as few resources in keeping you as possible,” Cas tells him, and Kevin is unsure whether it’s a compliment or if he’s being chastised. Maybe a bit of both. Cas is a complicated dude after all.

“So… what was she planning?” Kevin asks, looking down at his feet, “I mean, she wanted Crowley, I get that, but…?” And Cas tells him: about how Abaddon really only wanted to find Crowley, but once she found out that Kevin wasn’t going to talk, she didn’t want to waste many resources on him. Then, her main goal was drawing the Winchesters out and following them to the bunker using Kevin and Cas as bait. Failing that, she was going to trade Kevin for Crowley. 

Kevin frowns, mulling that over. Well, it worked out for him in the end, so no complaints. “Why shouldn’t you be here?” he asks suddenly, realizing that Cas had never explained what he meant, even as Kevin tries not to address Abaddon’s plans for him. 

“I…” Cas shifts, his gaze turning earnestly to Kevin. “Dean asked for me to remain in the room he assigned for me. But I was concerned for your well-being and wished to thank you. He does not know I am here, and it should most likely remain so.”

There is so much wrong—is Cas some kind of prisoner? Kevin frowns, then asks, “You wanna sit down or something? I have some Beethoven we could listen to…?”

And Cas smiles, looking younger and brighter than before, even as Kevin tries not to remember the way the demon wore Cas’s grin. They put the CD into Kevin’s stereo and listen. But Cas leaves after that first song, patting Kevin on the head, mouth twisted downward and eyes pinched in the corners. “I should go before Dean comes to check in on me.” 

And Kevin makes a mental note, as Cas exits with his shoulders hunched, that he needs to have a serious talk with Dean. 

* * *

Time passes and Kevin improves—he even manages to stay awake for more than a few hours at a time. Sam is the one who looks after him, mostly. “You’re healing up good,” Sam tells him one day as he inspects the scabbed ridges on Kevin’s chest, his expression unreadable, but the flare of his nostrils giving him away like always, “How are you feeling?”

“Itchy,” he says, grinning cheekily. 

Sam thrusts a shirt at Kevin, intently watches as Kevin shrugs into it, slow from his stiffness. They stand there for 55 seconds; Kevin counts them out, staring and silent. And then Sam clenches his jaw, throwing into relief the sharp outline of his cheekbones because he is still too-thin. “So. Want to tell me why you left the bunker?” Sam turns his gaze to Kevin again, till Kevin feels like a gnat beneath his scrutiny. 

All Kevin wants is to shut his eyes, turn away, blame anything except himself. But, at some point, Kevin needs to take responsibility. So he squares his shoulders but stands silent for another fifteen seconds, before his voice comes soft, “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was—I had nightmares, and no matter what I took or how much I drank—So I stopped sleeping and I kept taking and drinking. Nobody was here and I—“ he shakes his head, doesn’t brush his bangs away when they hide his eyes, so he winds up watching Sam through the dark strands, “I just needed to feel like I wasn’t—shit, I was stupid, okay? I really fucked up. I get that. I wasn’t in my right—not that that’s an excuse, but I just. That’s why I did it.”

Sam puts his hand on Kevin’s shoulder, grounding, stopping the flood of word vomit in Kevin’s throat. Kevin swallows thickly. “You should have talked to us, Kevin. You’ve got to let us know when it gets that bad. That’s—that’s what family is supposed to do.” He looks at him, softening. “We’re lucky everything turned out okay this time. You want us to trust you? You’ve gotta start by trusting us, man. This has to be a two-way street.” 

Despite himself, Kevin lets himself into the soothing tone, sinks into the warm familiarity, if nothing else. Some things don’t change, apparently. Kevin offers up the start of a smile that falls when Sam pulls away his hand. “I’m sorry we didn’t find you. There were demons _everywhere_ , like Abaddon was trying to throw us off. Every time we thought we’d found a lead… It was just another dead end. Hell, all of our leads after Starbucks were a bust. And we kept running into Cas, but we could never exorcize him fast enough. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m okay, or I will be. And I didn’t tell her anything important, so—hell, that’s something, at least.”

“ _You’re_ something, all right,” and Sam is laughing but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Remind me not to make an enemy of you, Kev.”

And Kevin grins. “Sure thing.”

* * *

Cas smirks at Sam and Dean, leaning casual against the wall. “I was starting to wonder if you’d ever find us.”

From where he’s pinned like a frog to a dissection board, Kevin tries to shake his head—even if he knows that the Winchesters aren’t just going to leave Cas. Or leave him. But Cas points the gun at Dean’s chest and—Sam can’t move faster than a bullet, has to scream like he’s been shot instead as it rips open his brother and Dean falls, blood spraying, and Kevin, stupid useless Kevin sobs, still pinned by the demon wearing Cas—

He wakes sticky and stinking with sweat. You’d think that, since his body has decided that all it wants to do is sleep, his subconscious would take pity on him. No such luck. His heart pounds, and he digs his palms into his eyes. 

Someday, maybe, nightmares will stop being such an awful thing, but all he can think is that a drink sounds awesome. 

Real Winchesters drink their problems away and he knows for a fact he still has a bottle of whiskey under his bed. He checked yesterday.

But he rolls over and shuts his eyes instead. Maybe he doesn’t go back to sleep for at least another hour, but it’s under his own power. That’s something, at least. Not much of something, but still something. 

* * *

“What about Cas?” Kevin asks, even as he sits. 

Dean decides that, since Kevin is feeling better, he should make dinner for everyone except Cas. Huge slabs of ribs, to be exact, and even Kevin forgets that he used to be a vegan as he slops barbecue sauce onto his plate. “He’s tired,” Dean grunts, as he snatches the bottle right out of Kevin’s hand, “Just gonna be us.”

But Sam glares down at his plate without looking at his brother. Kevin slides lower in his seat, so focused on not drawing attention that he forgets to roll up his hoodie-sleeves when he grabs his ribs. Sauce stains his cuffs—makes Dean laugh but Sam’s mouth barely twitches. A blush creeps up Kevin’s neck. “Thanks,” Kevin says instead, then takes a bite. 

The meat falls off the bone, tender and smoky beneath the spicy tang of barbecue. Kevin’s eyes flutter shut. Honestly, he doesn’t even _like_ meat most days but this is, without qualification, good. Dean surprises him sometimes. Cooking seems to go against the whole machismo thing Dean has going; although it is just meat, so maybe that ups his man-cred or something? Either way, Kevin settles into the food, and he ignores Sam’s petulance and Dean’s feigned nonchalance. 

Instead of talking about the elephant in the room—or the missing ex-angel, whatever—Dean asks about the escape and Abaddon. Sam shoots his brother a look, sharp and frustrated, “Kevin, you don’t have to—“

But Kevin licks off the sticky sauce from his lip and tries to ignore the string of pork stuck in his teeth. He really hopes they have toothpicks somewhere. The story comes out—he starts with Abaddon finding him at the Starbucks and goes from there, includes even the jittery withdrawal and her mouth on his, which has Dean pausing mid-bite to flinch; Kevin tells about the holy water and knife and the poker, tells everything. Sam slowly lets out a breath like a deflating balloon.

Then—then Kevin backtracks. He tells about his nightmares in the bunker and the drugs and the alcohol and Crowley. Kevin comes clean about Crowley and the translating and the blood and the hours spent talking. And after all the words come tumbling out, Dean and Sam both look at him, which is probably more attention than they’ve paid him since—crap, the Trials, maybe? When Metatron saved him and he woke up in that chair to find them both staring at him like they’d never seen him before? Kevin isn’t sure.

“Damn,” Dean whistles, brings his food to his mouth and tears off a bite, chewing as he watches Kevin. 

Kevin ducks his head to his plate, shoulders hunched over the table. Except the wet smacks of chewing and the occasional squirt of more sauce onto already swimming meat, no other noise is made. What to say? Kevin fucked up, and he knows it. But then Sam pushes away his plate like no one notices that half the pork still clings to the bones. He clears his throat; Kevin meets his gaze, amazed that Sam somehow had kept his face clean or mostly so. Kevin is pretty sure he will be wearing barbecue for hours. “You were dealing with Crowley without us? Seriously?” and his anger at Dean shifts stormily to Kevin. Kevin wants to slide underneath the table and live there.

“I—I just want to find a way to open up Heaven,” he says, tastes the lie as smoke against the sweetness of the sauce, “No. That’s not right. I… Translating is something to do. Everything—it all clicks when I’m translating. Like a puzzle. I had control of something for once. And translating—it’s my job, you know? Nobody can do it for me. It’s my responsibility. Cas is right. I’m always going to be a prophet. I can’t run from that. Heaven is—it’s my job. And I can’t think about everything if I’m translating. I have to focus, you know? And I like that. I felt like I was doing something. Getting somewhere. Crowley was a means to an end. I mean, I’m not proud—but I’m not—I am sorry, but I did what I had to. I have to find a way to open up Heaven.”

They stare at him, then Dean shakes his head and pushes away his plate too, bones picked clean. “Dude, you gotta chill. Seriously. We can’t read the God rock for you, but we can help with Crowley, if it’s that important. But we’re not gonna let you run off on your own. We got—they underestimated you this time, which, awesome. You’re gonna end up dead if you keep pulling shit like that. You gotta talk to us.”

“Right. Because you are so open and forthright with me,” Kevin says, sliding down in his seat again, dragging his fingertips through the barbecue sauce on his plate. “Trust runs both ways, _dude_.”

Dean winces, but Sam replies, without consulting his brother, “You’re right.”

Of course Kevin is. Like his mother before him, Kevin is always right. Someday they will acknowledge this. He clears his throat and nods at Sam. The expectation in normal interactions would be then that they discuss as adults how they’re going to change and fix that, how they will work with this acknowledgment of trust and streets and reciprocity. Instead, Dean says, “I made pie.”

And Sam lets him get away with the topic change. Sometimes, Kevin wonders if the chronic exhaustion is less to do with the Trials and more to do with the fact that Sam has to deal with Dean all the time. 

 

Just as they finish their cherry pie or, more accurately, Kevin eats his piece while Dean devours a huge slice and the half that Sam doesn’t touch, Dean says, whipped cream clinging to the corners of his mouth, “We’ll start with salt n’ burns. Work on your marksmanship, kid. You’re gonna need it.”

* * *

Cas comes into Kevin’s room with his neck bent and shoulders hunched as though he snuck here. “How are you?” Cas beats him to the question, dragging a hand over the dark stubble on his jaw. 

“I’m okay,” he says, getting up off the bed. “What about you? I haven’t seen you since…” 

But his voice trails off as Cas smiles, mirthless, blue eyes dull like an almost frozen lake on a sunless day. Kevin keeps himself from reaching out. At the very least, Cas has put on weight again, still bird-like in his construction but no longer ashen against the starkness of the bunker. He looks at Kevin for 40 Mississippis, unreadable, knowing things that Kevin will never know, before Cas shakes his head. “What were you doing?”

“Uh… nothing really? I was gonna watch cartoons. I pirated a copy of _The Hunchback of Notre Dame,_ so… You wanna watch with me? I mean. My computer is pretty small but…” Kevin shrugs, only knows he wants Cas to stop looking like Heaven is falling again. 

Cas nods, silent and slow, like maybe this is a trick question and a wrong answer will be disastrous. Instead, Kevin offers him the open bag of Lays on his bed. Without hesitation, Cas reaches his hand in and takes as many as will fit. They sit on the bed. Cas leans to see the computer than Kevin pulls onto his lap. 

Maybe Kevin imagines it, but Cas looks misty-eyed during _God Help the Outcasts_. 

Kevin decides to say nothing as they watch the movie because Cas looks enraptured, to the point Kevin finds himself looking at Cas more often than he does the screen. When the end credits roll, Cas turns to Kevin and smiles—bright and open, shining, and Kevin grins back at him. “Thank you,” says Cas, hushed and deep.

“No problem. I—this was fun. We should do it again.”

And he means it, but Cas turns away, summer shifting quick to winter. “Yes. I would enjoy that, when next we meet. Dean has asked me to leave. I wanted to thank you again, in addition to saying goodbye.”

Kevin feels his mouth open but no sound escapes. Luckily, he manages to scrounge a piece of paper and jot down his phone number. “Text, call, whatever. I can always use someone to talk to,” Kevin says, tongue clumsy in his mouth, God he never was good at the whole social interaction thing but he’s even worse now, but Cas probably has less practice than he does. “We’ll—“

With a smile, Cas takes the paper from him. “Yes. Thank you. I should go. Dean does not know I stayed. We shall see one another soon, I think.”

And Cas does. He leaves, and Kevin watches him go. 

* * *

Then Kevin goes to find Dean. He means to demand answers and yell, find out what exactly has been going on with Dean, but silence hits him hard when he finds Dean on the floor in his room, back leaned against the frame of his bed, and an open bottle of Jack in his hand. Dean sees Kevin and takes a slug, a mouthful that has amber liquid dribbling out the corners of his mouth. All at once, he swallows it down, doesn’t even cough, and bows his head against Kevin’s scrutiny. The drops of Jack keep rolling down his face.

“Please don’t,” he croaks, raw either from drink or Cas. 

And Kevin should ask now that Dean is weak, curled around a bottle that won’t help but he needs anyway. Instead, Kevin comes to crouch before him. “Could I have a sip?” he asks, meek in the face of Dean’s despair. 

Dean gives it freely. 

There will be time later for questions, Kevin realizes, as he swallows down the Jack. Today, he reaches out instead and takes what Dean offers. 

* * *

It’s a few weeks later when Kevin goes to the shooting range. The gun is still a little misplaced in his hand, still cold and unsure, but he puts on the muffs and breathes as he examines the target. Dean tells him it’s like the force—he just has to feel it. Kevin isn’t sure he feels it, necessarily, but he doesn’t hate it. He’d rather be holding the gun than having someone point it at him.

He holds his breath as he takes aim. When he pulls the trigger, the kick ratchets through his wrist, but expected, and he at least hit the target. He shot the imagined person in the shoulder, so maybe not lethal, but it’ll hurt a lot. It’s better than he’s done before. There’s a long way to go, so he settles into it. Kevin can be good at this. 

He falls back into stance and prepares. Kevin fires off shots till the gun clicks empty. Some better, some worse, and it’ll take practice, but Kevin thinks it’ll be okay. 

Just like everything else, he’ll get through what comes. Maybe his life is a mess, maybe it sucks, maybe Sam and Dean and Cas aren’t exactly the sort of people Kevin thought would comprise his family, but they’re all he’s got. And, at least right now, he feels way better about that than he did before. 

* * *

“Hey, nerd, get your nose outta the book,” Dean tells him one afternoon, flicking Kevin in the forehead. 

He looks up from reading to blink his irritation, because, seriously, he just started. And, before that, he had cleaned the kitchen since it was definitely his turn. Even though he knew if he waited long enough, Dean would totally cave. The man is almost comically domestic, given half a chance. “What?” Kevin asks, making a face. 

“Because you can study all you want,” say Dean, “but you’re not going to get anywhere without actual experience. Found a salt n’ burn two states over. Pack up. Leave the tablet here. We’re hittin’ the road in fifteen.”

Dean heads off in the direction of the garage, and Kevin stares at the doorway for way longer than he should. Because he doesn’t have a duffle bag packed like they do and he really needs to get packing. Kevin drops the book onto the armchair, not caring to put it back on the shelf, and lopes back to his room, to throw together some clothes and books into his backpack. What is he even supposed to bring? Should he bring the gun Dean gave him, or will they have weapons for him? Kevin has no idea, so he calls it good and slings the bag over his shoulder.

Maybe he shouldn’t be so excited to go risk his life, but hey, family business and all that. 

They’re waiting for him in the Impala, bickering. He slides into the backseat, dumping his backpack next to him as Dean grumbles, “Took you long enough. Let’s get this freak show on the road.”

Sam grimaces, but turns his head back to smile at Kevin. “Ready?”

“Yeah, I think I am.” 

And what do you know? Kevin is.  

Dean cranks the radio up, AC/DC blaring, and Kevin buckles his seatbelt. He’s ready for the next step. Sure, he still has questions to ask Dean; sure, his life sorta really sucks, but here he is. 

In the end, it’s enough. 


End file.
